With some of the biggest online poker series of the summer concluding last month, it should be no surprise that the PocketFives Monthy PLB race for September was packed with some of the best players the online poker world has to offer.

When the dust settled on the World Series of Poker Online series and PokerStars’ 2020 World Championship of Online Poker, it was former #1-ranked grinder Chris ‘Gettin Daize’ Oliver who topped the leaderboard for his fourth career Monthly PLB title.

Oliver kicked off September with a massive score on September 1 as he clinched a WCOOP title in Event #10-M ($1,050 NLHE 8-Max, Freezeout, Super Tuesday) for $164,398 and an even 1,000 PLB points.

However, as impressive as that six-figure score was, it paled in comparison to his next result which not only made his month but topped his online poker career of more than 13 years. On September 8, he finished in fourth place the WSOP Event #83 ($10K WSOP Super MILLION$) on GGPoker for an online career-high cash of $548,450 plus 1284.49 PLB points. The cash breaks his previous record of $285,311 which he set all the way back in 2012 by finishing as the runner-up in that year’s PokerStars TCOOP Main Event.

With nearly 125 results in the month, Oliver amassed an amazing 5,161 PLB points which were more than enough to lock up the Monthly PLB award and put an exclamation point on one of his most profitable runs since joining PocketFives back in 2007.

Oliver wasn’t the only former #1-ranked player to crack the top 5 in September. Yuri ‘Yuri Martins’ Dzivielevski (3,909 PLB points) finished in the #2 spot and used his September results to continue his climb back into the elite worldwide rankings in an effort to reach the #1 spot he last held in 2015.

Like Oliver, Dzivielevski’s month got off to a quick start. On September 1, he picked up one of his many WCOOP titles in Event #09-H ($1,050 NL 2-7 Single Draw) for $21,938 and he followed that up with a fifth-place finish in Event #10-M, the same event Oliver ended up winning, for $44,850.

He continued his WCOOP dominance with another title run in Event #20-H ($1,050 HORSE) for $31,115. The biggest of his WCOOP wins came just one week later when Dzivielevski went the distance in Event #48-H ($5,200 NLHE, 8-Max, PKO, Sunday Slam) for $127,410 (plus $118,124.97 in bounties) and a monthly high 817.01 PLB points.

That wasn’t the end of the Brazilian’s big month as he added a final table finish in the Super MILLION$ High Roller on Natural8 for another $185,350 which lifted his career online total earnings to over $7.75 million and a spot in the worldwide top-10 rankings, where he currently sits at #6.

Fellow Brazilian crusher Brunno ‘bbotteon’ Botteon (3,871 PLB points) wrapped up the month in the #3 spot, thanks to his deep run in one of the biggest heads-up competitions of the year. Coming off a final table finish in the WSOP $25,000 NLH Poker Players Championship where he walked away with over $388,000, Botteon’s confidence carried over to WSOP Event #79 ($25,000 Heads Up NLHE). He weaved his way through the 127 player field to make it to the finals where he ended up falling to Fedor Holz, but walked away with a career-high score of $622,300 and 1,161.52 PLB points.

Just three days later, he added a WCOOP title to his resume by winning Event #36-H ($2,100 NLHE Midweek Freeze) for $80,642 and narrowly missed out on another WCOOP victory by finishing in second in Event #48-H ($5,200 NLHE 8-Max, PKO) for another $95,458. The sum of his efforts has made him the #1-ranked player in the poker hotbed of Brazil and he currently sits as the #2-ranked player in the world.

Canada’s Mike ‘SirWatts’ Watson (3,818 PLB points) put up consistent results in September, good enough to land him in the #4 spot. Watson went on a run in the second week of the month by first, finishing in third place in the September 7 edition of the Natural8 High Rollers Blade Mulligan for $71,691 and 388.91 PLB points.

The next two days must have felt like a reoccurring dream as he finished in third place in WCOOP Event #34-H ($2,100 8-Game) for $25,073 on September 8. Then, the very next day, he notched another third-place finish in WCOOP Event #36-H ($2,100 NLHE Midweek Freeze) for $47,804.

While Watson may not have grabbed a gold medal, he does currently sits as the #4 player in the world, a career-high ranking for him.

The September top 5 wraps up with the current #1-ranked player in the world, Conor ‘1_conor_b_1’ Beresford, finding himself on yet another leaderboard. Beresford, who is having a career year in 2020, saw his September highlighted by his first career WCOOP title when he won Event #33-H ($5,200 NLHE 8-Max, High Roller) for $162,674 and 880.34 PLB points.