The World Series of Poker is truly that, a world event. One of the best things about the WSOP is that it brings people from every corner of the planet together to the same tables to play and compete. With this year being an odd number year, there is no World Cup or Euros for people to sweat this summer. But that does not mean that some good-natured country vs country battles can’t take place on the felt.
There’s always a question of how to compare countries and how they do at the WSOP. So I have established a system called “PokerOrg’s WSOP Global Battle” to rank countries. I will update these standings every two weeks during the WSOP this summer. And while of course, no system is perfect I think this one will do a pretty good job of ranking results by country by weighting depth and top results fairly evenly. For geography and international sports nerds like me, this will be something interesting to follow along with.
Due to sheer numbers and having the majority of entries, the USA is excluded from this event as this is a prize for international players to compete for.
PokerOrg Global Battle Points System
Cash - 1 point (15%-5% cashes only counted for $1,000 buy-in events and above)
Top 5% finish - 2 points
Top 1% finish - 10 points
Top 0.5% finish - 20 points (only for events with 3,000 or more entries)
Final Table - 50 points
3rd place finish - 75 points
Runner-Up finish - 100 points
Bracelet win - 200 points (bonus 25 points for bracelet win in 10k events and above)
Source: WSOP official results (Cases where the flag of a player is clearly incorrect in the results page have been accounted for and corrected for these calculations)
Full standings are at the bottom of the article.
The Main Event will have its own different point structure that will be released closer to the start of it.
Top 5 so far (through 17 events completed):
Canada 1,210 points - Canada has an advantage due to the number of players that cash events, however, they have extended a large gap at the top thanks to big results in big events as well, most notably Chanracy Khun’s bracelet win in the Event #8: $25,000 No-Limit Hold’em Heads Up Championship. The Great White North has added five other tables so far, including a third-place finish
United Kingdom 514 points - The UK comes in second and has plenty of time to make up ground as they have gathered this high score without a bracelet yet.
Brazil 432 points - Felipe Ramos boldly stated that “Brazilians are taking over” after his runner-up finish in Event #12. And Rafael Reis helped him back up that claim with the bracelet in Event #15: 6-Handed No-Limit Hold’em. Brazil certainly has the chops at the top to get big scores to close the gap on the numerical advantage of Canada and others.
Switzerland 337 points - Alexandre Vuilleumier kicked off Switzerland’s WSOP in style to with the bracelet in Event #2, which was a high-roller event meaning the bonus points were added. This is a lofty perch for Switzerland and will be interesting to see how high they can stay as the WSOP rolls on.
France 298 points - France may be a little lower than they desired so far but they are surely set to make a push for the top spot as more tournaments happen. Sarah Herzali has posted the best result thus far for France with a third-place finish in Event #3.
Other Notables:
Ukraine sits in sixth place currently thanks to the bracelet from Vadim Shlez in Event #7. Colombia has had a strong start and just cracks the top 10 in the first standings. Hong Kong sits in 11th place thanks to a third-place finish collected.
Big name poker countries, Germany, Italy, Australia and China find themselves lower down than one would expect early while some minnows have been able to put points on the board such as; French Polynesia, Sant Lucia, Kyrgyzstan and Antingua & Barbuda.
Check back in two weeks for updated standings with more events taking place to make the "Global Battle" truly take shape!
Full Standings:
| Rank | Country | Point Total |
| 1 | Canada | 1,210 |
| 2 | UK | 514 |
| 3 | Brazil | 432 |
| 4 | Switzerland | 337 |
| 5 | France | 298 |
| 6 | Ukraine | 206 |
| 7 | Spain | 146 |
| 8 | Japan | 129 |
| 9 | Israel | 121 |
| 10 | Colombia | 112 |
| 11 | Hong Kong | 91 |
| 12 | Hungary | 88 |
| 13 | Portugal | 81 |
| 14 | Australia | 76 |
| 15 | Greece | 68 |
| 16 | South Korea | 68 |
| 17 | Czech Republic | 55 |
| 18 | Austria | 52 |
| 19 | Costa Rica | 52 |
| 20 | Croatia | 51 |
| 21 | China | 50 |
| 22 | Netherlands | 49 |
| 23 | Germany | 48 |
| 24 | Russia | 35 |
| 25 | Italy | 34 |
| 26 | Venezuela | 30 |
| 27 | Bulgaria | 29 |
| 28 | Argentina | 23 |
| 29 | New Zealand | 21 |
| 30 | Mexico | 19 |
| 31 | India | 13 |
| 32 | Poland | 12 |
| 33 | Panama | 11 |
| 34 | Taiwan | 10 |
| 35 | Slovakia | 10 |
| 36 | Ireland | 9 |
| 37 | Denmark | 9 |
| 38 | Belgium | 7 |
| 39 | Uruguay | 5 |
| 40 | Romania | 5 |
| 41-44 | Turkey, Singapore, Sweden, Latvia | 4 |
| 45-50 | Norway, Slovenia, Estonia, Moldova, Trinidad & Tobago, Finland | 3 |
| 51-54 | Belarus, Thailand, French Polynesia, Ecuador | 2 |
| 55-63 | Saint Lucia, Senegal, Kyrgyzstan, Vietnam, Paraguay, Bahrain, Lithuania, Antigua & Barbuda, Azerbaijan | 1 |
