Anthony 'tonydatiger' Maio is atop the U.S. Online Poker Rankings

Halfway through the final month of 2018, Sweden’s ‘lena900‘ remains atop the PocketFives 2018 PLB race. Most of the top five stayed the same, with each of the top four places having the same player as our last update, but the #5 spot did change and it now belongs to ‘DamageAP.’

PocketFives 2018 PLB Top 5 as of December 20

1. ‘lena900‘ – 29,692.68
2. ‘C Darwin2‘ – 26,944.29
3. ‘hellohellohello‘ – 24,818.53
4. Roman ‘Romeopro’ Romanovsky – 21,906.06
5. ‘DamageAP‘ – 21,254.51

Thanks to adding 1,575 points since the last update on November 14, ‘lena900’ now has a lead of 2,748.39 points over the rest of the field. That’s a fair bit more than the lead of 2,124.20 he had on a month ago. Helping ‘lena900’ extend his lead was a third-place finish in the PokerStars Sunday Million on November 25 for $80,555 and 569.39 points. He also won the partypoker High Roller Bounty Hunter: $100K Gtd [Fast] on November 28 for $30,340 and 316.23 points.

In second place stayed ‘C Darwin2,’ but he only added 950.81 points to the 1,575 for ‘lena900’ and that caused him to fall behind further. With a total of 26,944.29 points and two weeks to go in 2018, it doesn’t appear that ‘C Darwin2’ is going to be able to catch ‘lena900’ for the Yearly PLB win. Even still, ‘C Darwin2’ has been performing well as of late. He has cashes for $20,926 (225.84 points), $14,247 (163.58 points), $13,370 (246.98 points), $12,282 (120.94 points), and $11,000 (137.65 points) in December already. The largest of those came from a fourth-place result in the PokerStars High Roller Club: $1,050 Sunday Supersonic [6-Max, Hyper-Turbo], $150K Gtd on December 2.

Russia’s ‘hellohellohello‘ stayed in third place and Roman ‘Romeopro’ Romanovsky stayed in fourth place, and the big change came with the addition of ‘DamageAP’ to the top five.

‘DamageAP’ overtook Ramiro ‘Ramiro’ Petrone for fifth place thanks to adding 846.60 points and moving to 21,254.51 points on the year. ‘DamageAP’ was only 119.04 points behind Petrone when we last updated and he earned 184.08 more PLB points since then.

‘DamageAP’ cashed for $15,504 and 187.29 points in the PokerStars High Roller Club: $1,050 Sunday Warm-Up [8-Max], $100K Gtd on November 18, he took second in the partypoker KO Series #09-HR: $100K Gtd [Mix-Max Fast] on November 19 for $16,916 and 208.63 points, and he won the PokerStars High Roller Club: $1,050 Daily Warm-Up [8-Max], $100K Gtd for $23,734 and 320.94 points on November 20. In December, ‘DamageAP’ won the PokerStars High Roller Club: $530 Bounty Builder HR [Progressive KO], $125K Gtd on December 1 for $13,614 and 267.39 points, and he also won the partypoker Sunday Deepstack: $100K Gtd on December 9 for $16,500 and 316.23 points.

Petrone is now the one on the outside of the top five looking in with 21,189.47 points, and ‘girafganger7‘ isn’t too far behind him with 21,119.80 points.