Rankings – December 2004

The big development in this month’s rankings (open | women) is that there is now more information available. I have added the nationality of the ranked players to the list. It gives an interesting snapshot of the international nature of our sport, and it will also allow players like Lorenzo Apriano to compile country-specific rankings lists using worldwide rankings.

I’m sure there are some mistakes, as I did this mostly from tournament results and memory. Let me know if I got anyone’s country wrong – or three-letter country abbreviations.

No new tournaments were reported in November, but we did receive additional results from the intermediate division of Romashred – welcome to the rankings, Romashred intermediates Attilo Picciotto (#391), Fabrizioi De Rossi (#396), Verio Cascone (#398), Stefano Brancaleoni and Simone Proietti (tie at #402), Marco Fracassi (#405) and Giorgio Flamini and Giorgia Lombardi (tie at #406)!

Three events fell off the rankings, causing most of the movement on the list. Points from 2002’s Arizona States, Tennessee States and the San Diego Round Robin Pairs event all expired this month. The biggest ranking victim is Peter Laubert, whose points from winning the Arizona States in 2002 are now gone. He tumbles from 53 to a tie for 124th, though he will certainly vault back up the list the moment he enters an event in 2005 (or before). Cindy Kruger was runner-up (with Paul Kenny) at Arizona in 2002, so she loses some of her points and drops a five spots. Kruger drops less because she has played so many events – 17, the most in the sport – that she had other results that nearly replaced the Arizona result that went away. Several other Top 50 players drop – Johnny O’Malley, Steve Hanes and Mary Lowry – allowing players around them to move up several spaces without playing any new tournaments. With points always coming on and falling off the list, players shuffle up and down like that.

The women’s rankings, as usual, are pretty stable. Mary Lowry and Anne Graves remain in a locked battle for the #3 and #4 spots. Tied in points, Graves gets #3 on the Spread-The-Jam Rule (whoever played the most events wins the tie).