January has come and gone and PocketFives.com has crowned a new Monthly PLB champion. His name is Chris Gettin Daize Oliver, who cruised to a total of 3,517 PLB Points in January, the highest number logged in a single month since Yevgeniy Jovial Gent Timoshenko accumulated 5,521 last September. The Orlando native sits at #37 worldwide in the PocketFives.com Online Poker Rankings on the strength of his successful month after debuting on the leaderboard in the middle of January. He sat down with us to recap his ride to the top.It’s been a wild journey for Oliver in January. He debuted in the Rankings on January 13th at #74. In the month of January alone, he recorded a ridiculous 262 cashes in tournaments that are tracked for the Rankings for a total of $289,000. I had never interviewed a player with more than 250 in the money finishes in a month in Rankings-eligible tournaments before.
On his parade of cashes during the time frame, Oliver told PocketFives.com, “I’ve definitely been playing more volume in the last month or so than I was before because it was a fresh start to the new year and all. I don’t plan to play that much every month. I had a PLB bet with my roommate for the month and the PLB contest for that week made me play a lot too.” Highlights included two wins in the PokerStars $100 rebuy, one for $21,000 and one for $20,000.
A handful of Oliver’s cashes have come in rebuy tournaments. He explained his mentality in that format: “I don’t really have a certain game plan. I’m just good at taking what everyone gives me and knowing when I have to slow down. In the early $100 rebuy, there are a lot of bad players in it and, for most part, I play tighter in most tournaments versus the worst players.” He elaborated, “That seems like the opposite of what you should do, but I feel that they don’t pay attention to the stacks that well and make moves that regulars wouldn’t.”
Oliver edged out recent Triple Crown winner Dylan Pokerl)evil Hortin in the January PLB. Hortin amassed 3,450 points, about 70 shy of Oliver, and seven players finished with more than 3,000 in a tight race down the stretch. Here’s how the final Monthly PLB looked:
It took Oliver all of two days in February to find success again. This time around, he won the PokerStars Nightly Hundred Grand for $23,000. He recapped the key moment in the $162 buy-in tournament: “I won a huge flip against Cody thugmoneymkr Slaubaugh (pictured at right) with 20 players left and it was smooth sailing until the end.” Also in the opening days of February, he final tabled the Full Tilt $75,000 Guaranteed for $10,000 and was the runner-up in a $215 Pot Limit Omaha tournament on PokerStars for $9,100.Despite all of his success and a Monthly PLB title under his belt, Oliver may pull back the reigns this month unless he comes through in a big way in the Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS), which starts on Wednesday. He explained, “I’m going to visit my dad for a couple weeks this month, so I definitely won’t put in as much volume as I did in January. I don’t like my chances unless I run well in the FTOPS.” The 15th cycle of the quarterly Full Tilt series consists of 27 tournaments, culminating in a $535 Main Event on February 21st.
Congratulations from all of us here at PocketFives.com to Chris Gettin Daize Oliver for laying claim to the January PLB title. Check out who else has won by visiting the Monthly PLB Wall of Champions.
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