This week, Patrick Leonard makes his fifth career trip to the top of Online Poker Rankings. (photo: partypoker)

It’s another trip at the top of the Online Poker Rankings for UK online pro Patrick ‘pleno1’ Leonard, who, thanks to a dominant end of 2021 and fast start in the New Year, is now enjoying his fifth reign at #1 in the world.

For more than a decade, Leonard has honed his skills to become one of the most respected online grinders in the game. He’s amassed more than $15 million in lifetime career online tournament earnings as well as spent the past five years as a vocal ambassador for partypoker. In the closing months of 2021, Leonard soared back up the rankings, breaking back into the top 10, crashing the top 5, and settling into the #2 spot. This week, he completed the journey and unseated Brazil’s Pedro ‘pvigar’ Garagnani for the top spot, ending Garagnani’s six-week stint at #1.

Leonard’s first time taking control of the Online Poker Rankings was back in August 2014, when he held the position for a short stay of one week. However, it wasn’t long before he was back on top, overtaking Nicholas Fierro in October 2014 for another two-week run. It was nearly five years later that Leonard battled his way back to the top for a week grabbing the lead in September of 2019, and then made his fourth appearance just two months later.

Leonard’s latest surge in results gives him the kind of leaderboard points total that could see him having the longest #1 reign of his career to date. Since the beginning of December 2021, Leonard has produced nearly 200 in-the-money finishes for a total of more than $908,000 in total earnings. This included his victory in the December 27 GGPoker $1,050 GGMasters High Roller in which he outlasted 986 entries for a monthly high score of $141,384, the seventh-largest cash of his online career. Along with the cash he also picked up 1000.00 leaderboard points, the critical score he needed to retake the #1 spot.

Among his notable results over the past few weeks was his January 5 win in the GGPoker World Series of Poker Online Series $365 GIANT for $46,427 (576.30 points) and the score that kicked off his recent hot streak, a fourth-place finish in the PokerStars $5,200 Titans Event for $75,469 (383.19). He’s had 15 five-figure scores in the past month and 14 outright victories – an outright win rate of just over 7% every time he makes it into the money over this stretch.

Leonard has always been a threat when it comes to the Online Poker Rankings, however, as previously noted, his past stints as the worldwide leader have never exceeded two weeks. This time around, thanks to his four leaderboard-qualifying scores this week, he built up a significant point lead over Garagnani. With 11,006 points, Leonard holds a 547 point lead over the #2 spot and 1,211 point lead over Dan ‘SmilleThHero’ Smijkovic who occupies the #3 spot. Of course, anything can happen, but assuming Leonard continues his persistent grind, this may be the time that he not only takes the top spot but retains that ranking for some time.

Additional Top 10 Moves This Week

In addition to Leonard and Garagnani swapping places in the #1 and #2 spots, Alex Theologis (#4) jumped over Brazil’s Lucio Lima (#5) by just 4 points on the back of a cash in the Natural8 $400 DOUBLE STACK for $3,302 and 109.69 points.

Mike ‘SirWatts’ Watson (#8) jumped up six spots this week bouncing back into the Top 10. Watson went one tear at the end of 2021, amassing seven qualifying scores since December 15 including a final table finish in the December 21 edition of the GGPoker Super MILLION$ for $93,080 (544.45) and, more recently, a runner-up finish in the PokerStars Winter Series Event 54-H $1,5050 NLHE for $60,618 (445.03). Watson’s career-high rank is #3 in the world.

Ramiro Petrone, recent winner of the partypoker Millions Online Main Event for $859,018, also joined the top 10. It’s not the first time Petrone has entered the top 10, but it’s the first time since leaving and rejoining the rankings earlier in 2021. He jumped 7 spots this week with his most notable cash of the week being his victory in the January 2 Black Chip Poker $200K GTD for $40,449 (590.76).

Online Poker Rankings Week of 1/5

RANKNAMEPOINTS
1stPatrick 'pleno1' Leonard11006
2ndPedro 'pvigar' Garagnani10459
3rdDaniel 'SmilleThHero' Smiljkovic9795
4thAlex 'Alexyo' Theologis9734
5thLucio 'Llima92' Lima9730
6thAnatoly 'nl_profit' Filatov9332
7thEnrico 'whatisL0v3' Camosci9159
8thMike 'SirWatts' Watson8927
9thDalton 'daltonhb' Hobold8913
10thRamiro 'ramiro' Petrone8822