After the Wednesday update of the GPI ranking, poker pro Byron Kaverman took 1st place for the first time in his career. The player has collected 4,257.36 points over the past nine months. Kaverman ended Jason Mercier’s reign, who was at the top for ten consecutive weeks. Now, he ranks 2nd with 4,200.41 points. Anthony Zinno is 3rd with 4,006.18 points.
A few players entered top 300 of the prestigious leaderboard and others left it. In fact, German poker pro Philipp Gruissem dropped out of it for the very first time in his career. After the weekly update of the ranking, he is now taking 346th place.
A lot could be said about Gruissem. He is Germany’s second most profitable player of all time with Tobias Reinkemeier being the only standing before him. Gruissem’s live tournament earnings currently amount to $9,704,018. His cash history shows that he has had a total of 34 in-the-money finishes since the beginning of his poker career and his first-ever cash came in August 2009, when he topped the field of the Asian Poker Tour HK$8,000 No-Limit Hold’em 8-Handed for a payout of HK$117,750 ($15,192).
Over the span of his career, the German has proved to be one of the world’s most successful high roller players. In October 2011, he finished 1st in the EPT Season 8/UKIPT Season 2 London £20,000 No-Limit Hold’em High Roller for £450,200 ($703,657).
In April 2013, Gruissem topped the field of the WSOP APAC A$50,000 No-Limit Hold’em High Roller to scoop A$825,000 ($863,386) of the entire prize pool.
In October 2013, he won the WPT Alpha8 London £100,000 No-Limit Hold’em to add £862,400 ($1,379,840) to his poker bankroll. In fact, this has been his best live cash so far. A few weeks later, he also won the WPT Alpha8 Saint Kitts $100,000 No-Limit Hold’em for a payout of $1,086,400.
In April 2014, he emerged victorious in the EPT Season 10 Grand Final €25,000 No-Limit Hold’em High Roller to capture the amount of €993,963 ($1,378,059) for his triumph.
Apart from his excellent performance on the felt, particularly in high roller events, Gruissem has been quite profitable online over the past several years. His online winnings amount to more than $2.7 million. The player can be spotted at the tables of PokerStars, Full Tilt, partypoker, and a number of other online rooms under the screen name ‘philbort’.
