Unless every person plays the same amount of games in the exact same tournaments, to say your region is "DA PLACE TO BE" based on rating points or whatever is crazy. Number of tourneys, type of tourneys.... too many variables.... At one point this year my name sat one spot behind a "Bangin" Illinois legend, and I'm not in the top one-zillion in poke talent... So ratings points don't hold all the cards....
Well.... I wasnt gonna respond to this topic as it has been beaten to death many time already. However, this comment induced me to respond....
Nearly EVERYONE is ahead of me this year. Including those who are much like yourself, not in the top one-zillion in poke talent... I will agree that rankings have zero to do with actual playing ability. I would however love to take you up on the money where your mouth is deal.
I have played in 3 events all year. 2 states and 1 city, all of which I spent my time trying to figure out how to beat the metagame. In the last rounds of swiss I was put into positions where I was ranked lower than my opponent. With no chance of making the cut over my opponents, I choose to do the honorable thing and scoop to them. Does that reflect in my rating? YES! Is it shown on paper what happened? NO.
So, back to the issue at hand....
I feel that you cant determine the BEST place to play is via rankings... I can tell you that you can look into any particular area for the BIG NAMES and detemine how difficult the metagame is. I will give examples below...
When I think of Cali.... TRUK, Chad, Carl, Martin all come to mind immediatly....
Florida.... Team R... Steve and pops, Eric,
Ohio.... Fulop, Seena, Drew, Tom
Illinois... Me, Jason, Alex,
Wisconsin... Pooka, Celio twins
New york.... Magnechu,
Daddy. ummmm you get the point.....
Obviously I missed a TON of huge names.... But as you can see, these names will generally keep people from INVADING a certain area.
I can say this for SURE.... If you see many players coming from 100+ miles away when they have another option much closer to them. Generally that means you have a POOR player base and it makes it more appealing to the top tier player to go in and take from you what they feel you do not deserve.
The truth stings, but it is what it is....
Jimmy