Global Poker Index: Kahle Burns Leads POY Race

Every week, the Global Poker Index publishes a list of the world’s top tournament poker players.

The related formula includes the results of the last six half-years. The complete ranking is available on the official GPI website. Below we take a look at this year’s fight for the title of Player of the Year and the overall GPI ranking (as of December 4th).

2019 GPI Player of the Year

Rank   Player                              2019 GPI POY Score

1             Bald Burns                            3599.67
2             Sean Winter                          3581.45
3             Bryn Kenney                          3570.84
4             Stephen Chidwick                3499.40
5             Manig looser                         3434.91
6             Rainer Kempe                       3425.66
7             Anthony Zinno                      3319.56
8            Sam Greenwood                    3294.67
9             Shannon Shorr                      3269.37
10           Joseph Cheong                    3253.96

The year 2019 is drawing to a close – and according to the Global Poker Index, the race for the title Player of the Year has never been so close.

Sean Winter was at the top of the 2019 GPI POY rankings for a while. For 14 weeks in a row, he held out at the top before being banished back to second place. Kahle Burns pushed Winter off the throne and has been leading for three weeks now.

Although Winter reached two final tables during partypoker MILLIONS World Bahamas and scored POY points on the credit side, Burns did the same. The current leader continues a winning streak that began last October with two bracelet wins at the World Series of Poker Europe in Rozvadov, Czech Republic. The first bracelet was in Event #8: €25,500 Platinum High Roller No-Limit Hold’em, the other in Event #13: €2,500 Short Deck No-Limit Hold’em.

Burns leads with 17 POY points ahead of Winter – and third place winner Bryn Kenney is only 10 points short of Winter. Kenney recently finished ninth, but his victory in the $25,500 World Poker Tour Seminole Rock & Roll Poker Open High Roller earned him a place on the provisional POY podium and $354,565. His total tournament winnings amount to more than $54.3 million.

Still within striking distance are Stephen Chidwick (4th place), Manig Löser (5th place) and Rainer Kempe (6th place). Each of them could make a set with only one prize money.

Note that the POY ranking of the GPI is made up of the 13 best (measured by points) prize money of a year. To give an example: Kempes thirteenth best tournament win in 2019 was the eighth place in a $50,000 event in the Baha Mar, which made him 177.03 POY points richer.

So if Kempe manages to get prize money that earns him more points, he could play his way to first place before Burns. This will probably require another final table in an important tournament. The same goes for everyone else at the top. In the end, the POY title will be decided by an exhausting back and forth.

As luck would have it, the top nine players in the POY ranking are the same as a month ago. Nevertheless, there was a movement – Burns, for example, climbed from seven to one.

Anthony Zinno (7th place), Sam Greenwood (8th place) and Shannon Shorr (9th place) have been stable in the lower half of the top 10 for the last four weeks. Joseph Cheong (10th place) finished a partypoker MILLIONS World Bahamas side event as a runner-up and collected enough points to claim the tenth place.

The GPI Top 10 overall

Rank     Player                                Overall GPI Score

1              Stephen Chidwick                3687.58
2              Alex Foxen                             3595.96
3              Anthony Zinno                       3387.21
4              Sean Winter                           3379.65
5              Manig Looser                         3369.95
6              Joseph Cheong                      3339.81
7              Rainer Kempe                         3304.52
8              Jeremy Ausmus                     3277.13
9              Danny Tang                             3211.35
10            Cristen Bicknell                      3185.05

Let’s take a look at the overall ranking of the GPI: Stephen Chidwick has been holding his own for 17 consecutive weeks at the top. Alex Foxen is just as long in second place, while Anthony Zinno has only been in third place for four weeks.

The rest of the top 10 looks the same for the most part as it did a month ago – only here and there, players switched places. Sean Winter is the only exception. After falling out of the top 10 a few weeks ago, he’s sure to be back in 4th place for now.

Kristen Bicknell is another name we want to say a few words about. Her victory in the 2019 Poker Masters $25,000 No-Limit Hold ’em event catapulted her to 8th place in the overall ranking of the GPI Top 10. In the last few weeks, however, she had to give up a few placings. Now she is just about the tenth in the world.