PDC Stats Analyst Christopher Kempf ranks PDC players according to the calibre of opponents in matches won and lost...
The Holistic Order of Merit Enhanced Ranking (HOMER) is a ranking system devised to measure and account for important factors in the game of darts:
1. Players receive ranking points for winning any PDC ranking match (including qualifiers for those events), and always receive 0 points for losing a match.
2. The base number of ranking points available to the winner of a ranking match doubles with each successive round of the tournament.
3. The final of the World Championship has twice the ranking impact of the final of any of the other six TV ranking events, four times the impact of any European Tour event final, and eight times the ranking impact of any Players Championship final.
4. Ranking points are totaled over the span of one year, with matches losing 1/365 (0.27%) of their ranking impact for each day prior to the present day. For example, a match occurring 6 months ago will have 1/2 the ranking impact of the same match occurring today.
5. Players earn ranking bonuses for defeating players ahead of them on the Order of Merit, with a minimal bonus for defeating a player one rank above up to a maximum of double ranking impact for any player who defeats the world #1.
Two weeks of European Tour domination have put Luke Humphries in the world number two spot in the HOMER rankings, more than doubling the ranking point total with which he began May.
Bonus points for defeating Peter Wright and Rob Cross on the final day of action put him ahead of both Michael Smith and Michael van Gerwen, who both walked away from the European Grand Prix without earning any ranking money.
Now that Wright's lead over Humphries is just 150 points (it was 1100 points three weeks ago!) and with Van Gerwen and Smith not far behind, it is highly likely that a new nunber will soon be crowned in the HOMER rankings.
Finishing as runner-up on the European Tour in two consecutive weeks has a silver-lining for Rob Cross, who has gained 140 points since May 1, and could surpass Danny Noppert and possibly Gerwyn Price with additional European Tour wins.
He does not earn as many bonus points as a player like Damon Heta or Humphries would, because of his relatively high Order of Merit rank, but each runner-up appearance represents over 100 points earned from previous tournament victories.
Rowby-John Rodriguez has just surpassed his countryman Mensur Suljovic with a 42-point boost, having defeated Joe Cullen and Daryl Gurney in Stuttgart, both of whom are ranked higher than he.
Rodriguez has now more than doubled his ranking points relative to his total a month ago, and can boast of having six-times more points than his younger brother.
The ranking position of Krzysztof Ratajski has fallen for four consecutive weeks as the Polish number one struggles to turn his excellent form (he averaged 106 last weekend against Cross) into points in the HOMER system - no matter how high your average may be, a loss still translates into zero points.
Similarly, in spite of his 103 average against Noppert, Smith's Saturday loss results in a plunge of 48 points due to attrition of previous point earnings and the loss failing to replenish his total.