The accolades for the #2-ranked player in the world, Michael ‘mczhang’ Chi Zhang, continue to pile up. His remarkable month of securing six-figure scores has led him to take the top spot of the Monthy PocketFives Leaderboard for September. In what has been well documented in the pages of PocketFives over the past few weeks, the UK’s Zhang went on an incredible tear during the recent PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker as well as partypoker‘s POWERFEST. In total, Zhang recorded 17 PLB-qualifying scores in September for a total of 6447.67 PLB points.

Even though he did not secure a win in one of the major tournaments of the month, Zhang continually set new record high cashes for himself. He booked four six-figure scores, all within 10 days of each other. Combined with all of his other earnings in September, he more than doubled his previous career earnings by winning more than $1.7 million.

His highlight haul came in POWERFEST #122 (SHR) when his bronze medal finish brought him a career-high payday of $468,000.

The former #1-ranked player from Sweden ‘C Darwin2’ checked in at #2 on the September PLB Leaderboard. ‘C Darwin2’ put in an incredible amount of volume, cashing in no fewer than 160 events. Of those, 16 qualified for his September PLB total of 5,860.99. His largest single PLB score came on September 16 when he bubbled the final table of PokerStars WCOOP-58-H ($5,200 Main Event) for $72,681.57 and 803.02 PLB points.

‘C Darwin2’ also finished in second place during 888poker’s XL Eclipse Main Event for a $135,000 payday. His monthly earnings totaled $687,121 putting him in striking distance of achieving $11 million in career earnings by the end of 2018. It’s been an amazing year for the Swede who hit $8 million in lifetime earnings in February of this year.

Third on the list was ‘lena900’, the Swedish savant that has held the world’s #1-ranking for the better part of four months. He did the most damage during the partypoker POWERFEST schedule, securing a number of massive scores. He took first place in POWERFEST #62 (SHR) Championship Event for $203.900 and 1000 PLB points. Less than a week later on September 17, he captured third place in POWERFEST #94 (High) Progressive KO for another $157,560. It was only two days later that he, once again, hit a massive score with a final table finish in POWERFEST #111 (SHR) Championship Event for another $84,875.

In total for the month, ‘lena900’ brought in 5,763.38 PLB points and nearly $912,000 over the course of 200 times in the money.

Whether it’s live or online, there seems to be no stopping Steve ‘MrTimCaum’ O’Dwyer, who came in at #4 for September. O’Dwyer had two cashes that resulted in PLB scores of over 1,000 points each. The first was his September 16 WCOOP #57 High ($2,100 NLHE Eight Max) victory with resulted in a $227,101 payday and 1,154.99 PLB points. Less than a week later O’ Dwyer took down a major POWERFEST title by winning Event #122 (SHR) Championship Event for a mammoth $869,610 and 1,974.84 PLB points.

His online earnings for the month topped $1.2 million and he soared to a new career-high ranking of #10 in the world. He carried that momentum into the live arena where he then took down a pair of high rollers during partypoker’s LIVE MILLIONS UK.

Wrapping up the September top five is renowned nosebleed cash game player Sami ‘LarsLuzak’ Kelopuro. Finland’s new #1-ranked grinder went on an impressive PLB run, stringing together 22 qualifying results in the month. He also booked three six-figure scores. Kelopuro saved the best for last when he scored an outright victory in partypoker’s POWERFEST #142 (SHR) for $317,190 and 1,278.67 points.

Kelopuro soared past $4 million in career earnings in September and also hit an All-Time high ranking of 15 in the world.

September 2018 Monthly Leaderboard