Erik Seidel Takes Top Spot in Weekly GPI Rankings

Erik Seidel moved past Jason Mercier to take over the top spot in the Global Poker Index, as several players moved up in the rankings thanks to strong performances at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure.

Seidel now sits atop the rankings with 2,988.29 points. This puts him a slim two points ahead of Mercier, while the third-ranked player -- Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier -- is over 160 points behind the clear top two.

Interestingly, Seidel's advantage has little to do with anything he accomplished in the last week. Instead, the peculiarities of the ranking system forced the change. In the GPI rankings, players can be credited only for a select number of tournament results in each six-month period, with the last six such periods counting towards a player's score.

This week, the 2011 PCA tournament series moved into the third period. This was beneficial to Seidel, as he had numerous strong results in the first half of 2011, while he had none in late 2012. Moving the 2011 PCA results into the third period thus helped Seidel, who had more than enough results in what is now the "second period" to profit from the change.

Other shifts in the top ten were minor. The only new player in the top ten is Mike McDonald, who moved up one spot to 10th.

Perhaps the biggest gainer in the rankings this week was 2010 World Series of Poker Main Event champion Jonathan Duhamel. Thanks to his amazing four final table finishes at the 2012 PCA, Duhamel moved up over 70 spots in just two weeks, and now sits at 11th in the GPI rankings.

The GPI is an effort by the Epic Poker League to rank the world's top 300 live tournament poker players. New lists come out each week, and take into account three years of results. This week, the most notable addition to the list is Pius Heinz, the 2011 WSOP Main Event champion, who currently ranks 249th. Several players fell off of this week's list as well, including notables such as Allen Cunningham, Phil Laak and Ted Forrest.