GPI Details 2021 Player of the Year Rankings Return

Last updated on March 12th, 2025

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GPI THM - Global Poker Index and the Hendon Mob

Since the Global Poker Index launched in 2011, it has been consistently tracking live poker players through its proprietary ranking system. Of course, its eventual partnership with The Hendon Mob, which is the penultimate poker player database for live poker, helped put all of the information in one place. And all of it made the Player of the Year rankings fairly easy to track.

Everything started normally in 2020, with players earning Player of the Year points in live events around the world…until…you know…the pandemic. As far as anyone could tell, every live poker venue across the globe halted operations and closed in March 2020. And it wasn’t as temporary as many hoped it would be. Instead, it went on for months, with only a few countries resuming live poker before the end of 2020. Even into the first few months of 2021, some countries – even some parts of the United States – had not resumed live poker.

The pandemic affected every country differently. And every government handled the virus differently.

None of that was conducive to tracking live poker finishes for Player of the Year races.

So, the Global Poker Index decided to relaunch the 2021 GPI rankings. Results will track back to January 1, 2021. It seems that 2020 is a loss, but 2021 doesn’t need to be. And it seemed like the perfect time to get back into points races as the GPI prepared to celebrate its 10^th anniversary.

Ten Years of POYs

It seems like a lifetime ago. Remember Epic Poker? The Epic Poker League was a part of Federated Sports + Gaming, headed up by Annie Duke and Jeffrey Pollack. The Global Poker Index (GPI) was a part of that as well, a rankings system to track players and determine who would qualify each year to play in the EPL.

That didn’t turn out well.

One think that did stay intact was the GPI. Through a bankruptcy and then purchase by Alexandre Dreyfus, the GPI continued to operate as a unique ranking system. And instead of judging players on a lifetime of poker accomplishments, it would track the past three years of play. This enabled players to change their places in the rankings through the years.

The rankings included tournaments meeting the following criteria:

-Tournaments must include 32 or more individual players (not entries)
-Buy-ins must be $1 or more (or the currency equivalent)
-Events must be open to the public, not restricted or including a charity component
-Each player can only receive one score per tournament, based upon their finishing cash position

By factoring in a formula to determine tournament difficulty and diminishing returns, GPI calculates players’ finishing positions and prize money. The other piece of the puzzle is the aging factor. Results only stay relevant for 36 months, and more recent results produce a higher score.

To determine Player of the Year standings, GPI uses this overall formula but only for the current calendar year.

2012 POY: Dan Smith
2013 POY: Ole Schemion
2014 POY: Daniel Colman
2015 POY: Byron Kaverman
2016 POY: David Peters
2017 POY: Adrian Mateos
2018 POY: Alex Foxen
2019 POY: Alex Foxen
2020 POY: Dr. Anthony Fauci (I kid.)

Back to the Races

On June 29, the GPI announced that it will resume the Player of the Year race for 2021, activating points dating back to January 1.

The top categories in the Player of the Year race will be familiar: GPI Global, Female, and National for each country. There will be a new one this year, though – Mid-Major Player of the Year. This will run a separate rankings list for players who compete in open poker tournaments with $2,500 buy-ins or less with a minimum of 32 entries. The top 13 results from each event will win points for the POY race.

There has been great demand for a category that counters the Global POY, as high-stakes players typically larger events (more points) and do so more often. Those players often crowd others out of the top of the rankings. The new Mid-Major category will make up for that.

All rankings will be updated on June 30, 2021 to reflect results for the first six months of the year. From that point forward, rankings will update on a regular basis.

We’re back, baby!!!!! Including the new GPI Mid-Major Player of the Year race!!! https://t.co/zQx9wSHstm
— Eric Danis (@EricDanisPoker) June 29, 2021

Next Global Poker Awards in 2022

Just two months ago, GPI/THM President Eric Danis revealed that the Global Poker Awards will return next year. Without many performances to consider for the year of 2020, it makes sense to wait until 2021 gives players a chance to compete.

When that happens, most likely in March 2022, the ceremony will again take place at the PokerGO Studio in Las Vegas. GPI renewed its agreement with PokerGO through 2024, clearing the way for the Global Poker Awards to run through 2024 at that location.