The reason we're creating a new standard for distributing points in tournaments is because we believe the current systems out there are imperfect. CardPlayer.com's Player of the Year (POY) standings seem to be the most accepted point system currently. However, only players that make the final table in a tournament that has a buy-in less than $10,000 and that meets their criteria earn these POY points. Even if the tournament has a buy-in of $10,000 and over, only the finishers at the final 3 tables receive their points. So, take the World Series of Poker in 2004, for example. Over 2500 people played in this main event, 225 people cashed, but by their current standards only 27 people would have earned POY points.

Another characteristic of our system is that we distribute tournament points more correlated to how money is earned. Although, our point distribution is not as 'top heavy' as the way money is distributed, it does place importance on finishing high in tournaments with a large prize pool. Again to reference CardPlayer's system, you would accumulate a lot of POY points if you had a lot of final table appearances, even if you didn't finish very high on the money list. With our system though, take David Williams for example. He finished 2nd at the WSOP main event and 2nd at the Borgata WPT event, both in 2004. Because he finished so high at these big prize pool events he finished 4th on our point list last year but 17th on CardPlayer's, even though he was the 3rd highest money winner in 2004.

The following equation is the one we use to calculate points earned by a player in each tournament:

where B is the buy-in, E is the number of entrants in the tourney, and P is the place the player finished in. For example, if a player finishes 2nd out of a field of 667 in a $5,000 buy in tournament, he/she would receive 913 Tourney.com points.

Because there are live tournaments going on all the time, we needed to have a way to determine which tournaments should be included in our system. The tournament criteria we have chosen for our point and ranking system are simple. They are:

• All WSOP Events and WSOP Circuit Events (excluding ladies only, seniors only, and casino employees only events)
• All WPT Main Events
• All Other Tournaments with buy-in's of $10,000 or more (except for invitational tourneys)

Although cashes at other smaller tournaments obviously contribute to a player's earnings for the year, the tournaments listed above were chosen because of the level of competition they will attract and the level of prestige which they hold. In most of these tournaments, players will have to navigate their way through a field of world-class players in order to capture the money, get to a final-table, or even win the whole thing. An old cliche' states, "if you want to be the best, you have to beat the best". Choosing these specific tourneys should be a great way to determine who is the best.

Although there is a fairly accepted point system today, there is not currently an accepted ranking system. So, if you want to see who the top ranked players in the world are, where do you go? CardPlayer's POY list will show you who's having a good year. However since the points reset at the end of the calendar year, how do you know who the top ranked players are in January or even March? Also, when a no-name amateur wins the first big tournament of the year is he the "best player in the world"? We have developed a formula to calculate ranking poker players based on how they accumulate our points on an ongoing basis. This will help establish continuity in recognizing the top tournament players. Our rankings are based on a system similar to the one professional golf uses to rank its players. Our system ranks players using a 24-month rolling scale that weights recent events more heavily. The previous rolling 24 months are divided into 8, 3-month periods. Each of these 8 periods has a multiplication factor assigned to it. These factors decrease according to the following scale:

• Last 3 months 1.0
• 3 – 6 months ago 0.875
• 6 – 9 months ago 0.75
• 9 – 12 months ago 0.625
• 12 – 15 months ago 0.5
• 15 – 18 months ago 0.375
• 18 – 21 months ago 0.25
• 21 – 24 months ago 0.125

As tournament participants earn points, these points are multiplied by the factors above. Players are currently ranked at Tourney.com according to these final numbers.

Through Tourney.com we hope to accomplish several things:

• Create a better, more widely accepted point system to determine players of the year
• Launch a new and exciting world poker player ranking system
• Attract new prominent sponsors to our system and to poker in general
• Promote the consistency and credibility of professional poker in the sports world
• Help to establish familiar names and faces of top-ranked players while motivating the amateur player to attain this status
• Improve our system as we go based on your feedback!

We'd love to hear what you think about us! If you have any feedback, comments, suggestions, insults, or praises, please contact us and let us know. We look forward to seeing you around!