In what we believe is the first changing of the guard in the PocketFives Country Poker Rankings since they debuted in 2011, Sweden has overtaken Canada for the #1 spot. If you’re not familiar with the Country Poker Rankings, the combined PLB scores of the top 20 players in a given nation determine its position.

Sweden, which boasts four of the top eight players worldwide in the PocketFives Online Poker Rankings, has a combined PLB score of its top 20 players of 118,064 points, about 1,500 ahead of Canada, which sits at 116,520. Canada only has one representative in the top 20 worldwide of the PocketFives Rankings, but is tops when you sort the nations of the world by Total PLB score at 1.5 million points.

We thought it’d be useful to highlight the top five ranked players from Sweden and the top five ranked players from Canada so you can see who is driving the impressive performances in each country:

Sweden

1. lukethafluke (pictured) – The top-ranked player worldwide on PocketFives, Lukas Berglund calls Stockholm home and plays on PokerStars under the screen name superkid-bam. He already has two tracked scores this year of at least $42,000.

2. Sheater – A former #1 ranked player worldwide, Sheater is currently #3 and has $4.4 million in tracked scores, including five last year of at least $33,000.

3. VnilaVader – One of four players with PLB scores from the town of Kungsbacka, Anton Herrmann is ranked #7 worldwide on PocketFives and already finished second in the PokerStars Super Tuesday earlier this year for $83,000 officially.

4. inhoo – Finished second in an FTOPS Two-Day event in December for $162,000, his largest tracked cash to date. He is ranked #8 worldwide.

5. lena900– One of the hottest PocketFivers recently, lena900 final tabled the Sunday Million one week ago for $81,000. The Swede impressively final tabled a WCOOP Challenge event and won the Full Tilt T-Rex on the same day in December.

Canada

1. bparis (pictured) – The holder of $6.5 million in tracked scores, good for the eighth highest tally of any PocketFiver, Bryan Paris is ranked #6 worldwide. You can find him camped out in Winnipeg.

2. Flush_Entity – A former #1 player in the Rankings, Griffin Benger won the PokerStars Sunday 500 last month and put away $74,000 officially. He is the top dog in Ontario.

3. T Money – The 22nd ranked player worldwide, T Money has been a member of PocketFives since 2007 and has multiple wins in the Full Tilt Sunday Brawl.

4. JMolloy – Toronto’s Jimmy Molloy is ranked #41 worldwide and was the runner-up in a MiniFTOPS event earlier this year for an even $30,000.

5. 1bigacehole – The owner of $5.9 million in tracked scores, TJ Ulmer was ranked as high as #1 worldwide two years ago. Now, you can find him at #53.

Congrats to Sweden on its ascension to #1!

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