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The Ladies GPI Rankings Recap will be a recurring monthly column (once live poker tournaments resume, of course) in which we will follow the women who are chasing top spot on the GPI leaderboard. We’ll chart their progress throughout the year as they race to win the 2020 GPI Female of the Year award.
The 2019 Global Poker Awards ceremony was held on March 6 at the PokerGO Studio in Las Vegas. Kristen Bickenell was crowned the Female GPI Player of the year for the third time in a row, having won this honor before in 2017 and 2018.
🌐♣️🏆 Back-to-Back-to-Back. The GPI Female Poker Player of the year: Kristen @krissyb24poker Bicknell#GlobalPokerAwards pic.twitter.com/LFwLxLtsjj
— Global Poker Index (@gpi) March 7, 2020
The yearly POY rankings include only a player’s best 13 scores from January 1-December 31 each calendar year. GPI scores are derived from a combination of a player’s finishing place percentage and buy-in factor. For GPI rankings, events must be open to the public, so Ladies Only events and senior events are not included. Full details and formulas can be found on the GPI website. The newest GPI scores are tallied every Friday.
Women from all over the world have stormed the felt this year and with tournaments like the 2020 Aussie Millions, WPT Fallsview, Rolling Thunder and Seminole, partypoker MILLIONS UK, and various WSOP Circuits both in the USA and internationally, there were many series to play to start earning points for the 2020 GPI Female of Year Leaderboard.
A first place finish in the NLH 6-Max the WPT LA Poker Classic and a second place at Bay 101 Shooting Stars has secured Kristen Bicknell the early lead in the 2020 Female POY race with 997.50 points, 200+ points more than 2nd place, Canadian Yuan Li.
Kristen Bicknell wins Event No. 63 ($71,970) at LAPC. Her Ac7d>Kh8d of Taylor Von Kriegenbergh on a final board dealt Ah7h7sAd3d. https://t.co/VjdHunSePA pic.twitter.com/cwVrVxA2t7
— LA POKER CLASSIC 2020 (@LAPC) March 3, 2020
Maria Constanza Lampropulos is in third position after her two final table finishes at the partypoker MILLIONS UK. Maria is an accomplished player, who has more than $3.3 million in recorded earnings. She holds a PCA Main Event title and a partypoker Main Event title but has yet to win the Female GPI POY award.
Alexis “Lexy” Gavin’s win at the RunGood series, third place at the WPT LAPC, and tenth place at Bay 101 Shooting Stars Main event, yielded points that have her currently placed fifth on the leaderboard. Lexy finished 19th in the 2019 GPI Female POY Rankings.
Second title of the week secured! Lexy @LexyGavinPoker Gavin cruises through a field of 272 players in the $185 RG DeepStack Ring Event at @HorseshoeIowa! She takes home $9,475 plus a RG All-Stars Ring! #AllStars #ProAm #Homecourt 🏟 pic.twitter.com/mRzEgCLJVL
— RunGoodGear.com (@RunGoodGear) February 7, 2020
Austria’s Jessica Teusl also made it into the top 10, which is mainly dominated by Canadian and USA players. She had three final table appearances at the CAPT Seefeld, including winning the €550 NLH Snow Festival event, which contributed to her point total of 507.81, good for ninth place.
1 | Canada | Kristen “Krissyb24” Bicknell | 997.50 |
2 | Canada | Yuan Li | 788.62 |
3 | Argentina | Maria Constanza Lampropulos | 704.45 |
4 | USA | Nadya Magnus | 678.32 |
5 | USA | Alexis Gavin | 669.19 |
6 | Canada | Louise Francoeur | 612.14 |
7 | USA | Kathy Liebert | 562.07 |
8 | USA | Lynn Griswold | 533.70 |
9 | Austria | Jessica Teusel | 507.81 |
10 | USA | Angel Velez | 497.12 |
Source: Global Poker Index, accessed on March 24, 2020
If we look at the Asia Pacific Region, many tournaments scheduled for February and March were either canceled (e.g., APL Danang, WPTDeepstacks Vietnam), moved (e.g., APT Danang, WPT Taipei) or played out with reduced guarantees (e.g., WPT Manila, APT Taipei). The Aussie Millions, despite the Australian bushfires, took place as scheduled in January.
Interestingly, Hui Chen “Kitty” Kuo who finished fourth in the GPI Female POY race in 2019, has only one cash so far in 2020, from the APPT Taiwan, which is not enough for a top 200 ranking. According to her very active Twitter account, she skipped Bay 101 due to coronavirus fears. Naturally, if and when she’ll be able to put in the volume and make deep runs once more, we’re likely to see Kitty climb that leaderboard.
I think for some health issue, I decide to skip @Bay101Casino this year, sorry for me last min cancel, be safe to all my friends in San Jose pic.twitter.com/ZRzU56qGiz
— kitty kuo thomas (@kittykuopoker) March 11, 2020
The international poker world continues to be shaken up with casino closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While the Hendon Mob has for all intents and purposes gone into “hibernation”, the last logged series results were from the Belarus Poker Tour and partypoker Sochi, but no women were in attendance. Other large series have either been cancelled, postponed, or moved online. As GPI points are not awarded for online poker tournament series, we will need to wait until live play begins anew for the next installment of the Ladies GPI Rankings Recap.