Week 3 of the Global Poker League’s inaugural season is in the books and, despite some early season struggles, the New York Rounders – the preseason pick by many to be in contention for the first GPL World Championship – have surged to the top of the GPL Americas. In the GPL Eurasia, the Paris Aviators and the Hong Kong Stars continue to confound the rest of their conference foes as they battle it out for supremacy, with the Aviators currently holding the edge.
In the GPL Americas, the Rounders saw “wild card” Tyler Kenney make the most of his selection by scoring a victory and a runner-up finish during the Six-Max sit and gos on Tuesday, scoring 12 of a possible 14 points that were available that day. Although his brother and team manager Bryn Kenney was only able to score three points against the Montreal Nationals’ Pascal Lefrancois on Thursday in the heads up matches, the 15 total points was enough to push the Rounders into the overall lead for the season over the Nationals. The Nationals needed those six points from Lefrancois as, in the Six-Max, they were only able to get three points out of Mike McDonald to maintain second place.
These two teams have basically been able to put some distance between them and the remainder of the GPL Americas. The Las Vegas Moneymakers are the only other team who has scored more than 30 points to this mark in the season and, at 31 with one victory, they are way back in third place. One of the early season picks to be among the contenders – and what might be called a disappointment to this point – are the San Francisco Rush, who have only compiled 24 points and three wins to this point in the season.
Here’s a look at the standings for the GPL Americas:
| GPL AMERICAS | POINTS | WINS |
| New York Rounders | 40 | 4 |
| Montreal Nationals | 38 | 4 |
| Las Vegas Moneymakers | 31 | 1 |
| L. A. Sunset | 28 | 2 |
| Sao Paulo Metropolitans | 28 | 1 |
| San Francisco Rush | 24 | 3 |
The battle between the Aviators and the Stars in the GPL Eurasia has arguably been one of the most entertaining things about the early season action in the GPL. The Stars made the biggest noise during the Six-Max on Tuesday, taking eight points between Raiden Kan (third) and Weiyi Zhang (second) while the Aviators could only muster one point by Fabrice Soulier. Saving the week for the Aviators was George Danzer, who pounded the London Royals’ Igor Kurganov 9-0 in their heads up match while the Stars’ Randy Lew took a win over the Berlin Bears’ Daniel Cates, 6-3. Once all the points were compiled, the Stars had pulled four points closer to the Aviators in the overall standings.
The Stars weren’t the only ones to get back in the mix. The Moscow Wolverines’ Andrey Pateychuk garnered 10 points in the Six-Max and Sergey Lebedev added six more from his heads up fight against the Rome Emperors’ Timothy Adams to close within five points of the Aviators. The Royals, The Emperors and the Bears have got to get some good mojo running soon, in particular the Emperors, who are the only team to have yet to win a match on the GPL schedule.
Here’s the table for the GPL Eurasia after Week 3:
| GPL EURASIA | POINTS | WINS |
| Paris Aviators | 40 | 4 |
| Hong Kong Stars | 37 | 3 |
| Moscow Wolverines | 35 | 4 |
| London Royals | 28 | 3 |
| Rome Emperors | 27 | 0 |
| Berlin Bears | 22 | 1 |
Week 4 looks to be where we’ll see a major clash of the titans. After the dual Six-Max matches are done on Tuesday – with the GPL Eurasia taking two sit and gos and the GPL Americas a pair of matches of their own – Wednesday will be the day fans want to tune in over the GPL’s Twitch feed or on Poker Central. In the GPL Eurasia, the teams will be matched up by the way they are sitting in the standings currently, offering some opportunities for the standings to make a major shift:
Moscow Wolverines vs. London Royals (noon Eastern Time U. S.)
Paris Aviators vs. Hong Kong Stars (2:30PM)
Rome Emperors vs. Berlin Bears (5PM)
Thursday isn’t going to disappoint the fans either as the marquee matchup features the Nationals and the Moneymakers looking to firmly take the mantle of being the team that might challenge the Rounders for the top slot in the GPL Americas:
San Francisco Rush vs. Sao Paulo Metropolitans (1PM Eastern Time)
L. A. Sunset vs. New York Rounders (3:30PM)
Las Vegas Moneymakers vs. Montreal Nationals (6PM)
At the end of this week, the halfway point of the first half of the GPL season will have been reached. With only four weeks to go before the break for the World Series of Poker, we should have a firm idea of who the major players are and who has their work cut out for them over the next four weeks and during the live events in Las Vegas following the WSOP as the teams position themselves for the run towards the GPL Playoffs.
