The UMB world rankings, which are especially important for players to qualify for World Cups and the World Championship, will change from 1 January 2024. From that day, ranking points will no longer be handed out for national titles and championships of Europe, America, Asia and Africa, The world title, for example, will be rewarded by the same number of points as a World Cup (80 for the winner), the European title will no longer be rewarded with ranking points.
What will that change in practice?
If that new counts were already the system for now, it would not be Myung Woo Cho who is the world number one, but Dick Jaspers. The Dutchman said in a comment: ’’The new system will not change much, but it is more fair, because it is not equally difficult or easy to become the country’s champion everywhere. And winning a European or Asian title is much harder than an African title.''
The new ranking is called the 'UMB Events ranking'. For the ranking, the World championship and the last 10 World Cups count. The tenth World Cup, counted backwards, drops off each time a new World Cup is played.
In the improvised new ranking, Dick Jaspers has won two World Cups, in Ankara and Las Vegas 2022, that would still count. In the current ranking, only the last seven World Cups are counted.
A comparison:
In the world rankings that still count today, the top 14 are:
- Myung Woo Cho 358 points
- Marco Zanetti 357
- Torbjörn Blomdahl 354
- Dick Jaspers 348
- Quyet Chien Tran 331
- Eddy Merckx 319
- Sameh Sidhom 282
- Tayfun Tasdemir 259
- Haeng Jik Kim 258
- Phuong Vinh Bao 254
- Jun Tae Kim 223
- Martin Horn 216
- Jérémy Bury 204
- Jung Han Heo 196
According to the count used from 1 January, the top 14 are:
- Dick Jaspers 446
- Quyet Chien Tran 332
- Torbjörn Blomdahl 332
- Marco Zanetti 296
- Eddy Merckx 276
- Haeng Jik Kim 276
- Myung Woo Cho 273
- Tayfun Tasdemir 250
- Sameh Sidhom 353
- Martin Horn 212
- Jun Tae Kim 211
- Jérémy Bury 208
- Jung Han Heo 196
- Nikos Polychronopoulos 180.