In the aftermath of the biggest online series of the spring, which this year included the 2021 PokerStars Spring Championship of Online Poker and the first-ever GGPoker Spring Festival, there are traditionally major shakeups in every section of the Online Poker Rankings.

This year, a snapshot of the rankings, after the dust has cleared, paints a picture of the best online professional players thriving in a season where more than a quarter-billion dollars in prize money was up for grabs.

There’s no better place to start than at the top where Brazil’s Yuri ‘Yuri Martins’ Dzivielevski is currently enjoying his seventh week as the top online player in the world. It’s no small feat to retain the #1 rank in the midst of some of the biggest online paydays of the year, but Dzivielevski did so by constantly being in contention for major titles. This includes his victories in PokerStars SCOOP Event 09-M ($215 HORSE) for $17,024 and GGSF Event 42-H ($2,100 Sunday Heater) for $72,379 and 638.75 points. In addition to rankings points, Dzivielevski also earned massive scores including a runner-up showing in GGSF Event 23-H ($25,500 Super High Roller) for $393,943, his largest score since the beginning of April.

Dzivielevski has racked up 17 leaderboard-qualifying scores since the start of the spring series and sits with 16,076 points, leading the majority of the field by a wide margin.

The player who has the best chance to catch Dzivielevski is April Online Player of the Month, Sami ‘LarsLuzak’ Kelopuro who currently sits ranked #2. Kelopuro had a career month in April, racking up more than $4.4 million in total scores. Three of Kelopuro’s top-5 career scores took place last month, including his runner-up finish in GGSF Event 109-H ($25,500 Sunday Millions) in which he earned $720,833 and a massive 1,368.09 bump in leaderboard points. Kelopuro’s spring showing jettisoned him back into the worldwide top 5 and put him in striking distance of retaking the top spot with 15,422 points.

Mike ‘SirWatts’ Watson is back at a career-high ranking of #3 in the world thanks to a trio of GGSF victories. On April 10, he booked the win in Event 28-H ($1,050 High Rollers Main Event) for $52,439 and 500 leaderboard points. Then, as the series was winding down, Watson basically went back-to-back with six-figure scores when he won Event 83-H ($10,300 Super Tuesday) for $363,776 and 1,339.07 points. Two days later he was celebrating a win again in Event 93-M ($2,625 High Roller) for another $144,855 and 838.15 points.

Also of note for Watson, although it didn’t contribute to his rankings, he nabbed his seventh career PokerStars SCOOP title by taking down Event 78-H ($1,050 FL Badugi) for just over $20,000. Watson currently has 14,232 leaderboard points, which under normal circumstances would be more than enough to reach #1. For now, though, he’s currently 1,844 away from the top and 1,190 from hitting a new career high.

Another player looking to position themselves to hit #1 for the first time is Russia’s Arsenii ‘hellohellohello’ Malinov who is currently ranked #4 with 14,129 points – just 103 points behind Watson. Malinov nearly captured a SCOOP title when he finished as the runner-up in Event 64-H ($5,200 NLHE PKO) for more than $148,000 and 526.77 points. While Malinov may have missed out on a SCOOP 2021 title, he made sure to take down a GGSF win in Event #82-H ($2,100 Bounty) for $114,754, a score that helped push him up over $15,000,000 in career online earnings.

Rui ‘RuiNF’ Ferreira is also rapidly closing in on $15 million in career earnings. The current #5 ranked player in the world has been bouncing around the top 10 for weeks now, but has come down off his high of #2 in recent weeks.

Ferreira put up 10 leaderboard-qualifying scores over the course of 160+ results since the start of April which included the GGSF title he won on April 5 in Event Event 07-H ($2,100 PLO-NL Bounty) for $108,690 and 698.57 points. While that was his only six-figure score during the avalanche of high roller tournaments that he routinely registers for, his consistent play has kept him in the hunt to reach the top of the rankings.

Online Poker Rankings Notes This Week

• Damian ‘tritu’ Salas is back at a career-high ranking coming in at #9 this week with the help of his SCOOP 2021 title run in Event 72-H ($10,300 NLHE) where the reigning WSOP Main Event champion took home $263,023 and 1,095.45.

• Also returning to the top 10 after the spring series is Sam ‘Pudge714’ Greenwood who picked up 876.07 points when he took home a GGSF High Roller title for over $144K.

• The UK’s Patrick ‘thebigdog09’ Brooks jumped 184 spots to climb back into the top 100 after finishing in fourth place in the April 26 GGSF GGMasters High Rollers for $68,320 and then taking home a runner-up finish in the Natural8 $800 NLHE 6-Max Championship for another $121,248.

• Renan Carlos Bruschi (aka Internett93o) is the latest Brazilian to make waves in the rankings, reaching a career-high rank of #13 thanks in part to his runner-up finish in SCOOP Event #18-H for $120,000 and his SCOOP victory in Event 66-M for $87,203.

Worldwide Online Poker Rankings