Bryan 'bparis' Paris Wins June Monthly PLB in a Landslide
After a photo finish in May, the ending of the June Monthly PocketFives Leaderboard was anything but dramatic. Bryan ‘bparis’ Paris absolutely crushed the competition last month with 3,342.60 PocketFives Leaderboard Points, over than 500 more than the next closest player.
“It feels fantastic,” Paris said. “I have been telling myself all year that June would be a huge month and it’s been fun watching that become a reality. It’s been a validating experience to see that I can still achieve milestones like this. Online poker has become tougher the past couple of years, but a lot of studying and hard work have paid off. I hope to hit many more milestones going forward while helping make poker grow again.”
While other poker pros were in Las Vegas for the World Series of Poker, Paris was camped out half-a-world away in Amsterdam crushing souls on the non-US sites. He won two PocketFives Triple Crowns in June, the fourth and fifth of his career, one of which passed 1,000 PLB Points.
All told, Paris piled up 117 in the money finishes over the course of the 30-day month for over $235,000 total. These included 10 wins, 39 top-10 finishes, and a victory in the PokerStars Super Tuesday on June 7 for $81,000, the fifth largest score of his career.
One day before his Super Tuesday win, he finished fourth in the partypoker Heavyweight Main Event for $10,000. He booked the same payday for winning that site’s High Roller on June 10, the third and final five-figure score Paris logged last month.
Paris’ Monthly PLB win was the 13th ever by a Canadian player on PocketFives. It was the first Monthly PLB win by a registered Canuck since Connor ‘blanconegro’ Drinan took down the leaderboard in March 2014.
Over 500 points behind Paris in the Monthly PLB race for June is Johannes ‘Greenstone25’ Korsar, who ended up with 2,799 points, an amount that would have been good enough to take down the leaderboard in February.
Korsar, who calls Sweden home, had a half-dozen five-figure scores last month, including a second place finish in the PokerStars Sunday Grand on June 19 for $37,000. It was one of 23 top-10 finishes for the Swede during June and, not surprisingly, he zoomed up to #13 worldwide in the PocketFives Rankings, his all-time high.
Canada’s Jimmy ‘JMolloy’ Molloy finished in third place in the June Monthly Leaderboard with 2,767 points, just 22 behind Korsar. He had a dozen wins last month, including the partypoker High Roller, PokerStars $109 Rebuy, PokerStars Big $109, and partypoker Heavyweight Creed, which raised his career win total to 321.
“It feels good,” Molloy said. “I’m enjoying the softer games much more than the usual grind even if the prize pools are a bit smaller while a lot of regs are in Vegas. I’m hoping I continue to run well and put up the same results when they return.”
Ending June with 2,731 PLB Points, good for fourth place, was Davide ‘girex91’ Marchi. He had a blockbuster seventh day of June, placing fourth in the Super Tuesday and winning the Big $215, both on PokerStars, for $45,000 total. Marchi is the second-ranked online poker player in Malta and a two-time Triple Crown winner.
“I had a very good month,” Marchi said. “I just missed a big ship, but whatever. This month started well also, so I hope (July) is going to be at least as good as June was.”
Rounding out the top five, and the third Canadian in the group, is ‘iamthedeck ftw‘, who had 2,388 PLB Points. The 90th-ranked player worldwide turned in three wins during June, one of which was a $42,000 haul that came as a result of winning the PokerStars Thursday Thrill. He has $2.7 million in career online tournament winnings.
The top 10 in June:
- bparis – 3,342.60 points
- Greenstone25 – 2,799.67 points
- JMolloy – 2,767.36 points
- girex91 – 2,731.48 points
- iamthedeck ftw – 2,388.79 points
- tonkaaaa – 2,250.98 points
- DeathbyQuads – 2,189.38 points
- r4ndomr4gs – 2,170.01 points
- alexd2 – 2,154.35 points
- aJarov – 2,069.10 points
