‘lena900’ hit #1 this week in the PocketFives Rankings

Three of the last four players to hit #1 on PocketFives all call Sweden home. The poker powerhouse has churned out top-tier talent after top-tier talent. The latest Swede to hit #1 is ‘lena900‘, who moved into the top spot for the first time ever on Wednesday.

Heading into last week ‘lena900’ trailed fellow Swede ‘C Darwin2‘ by only a few PLB Points. He won a $215 No Limit Hold’em Turbo on PokerStars on Tuesday for $6,400 and, on March 20, won a Powerfest event on partypoker for $34,000, his second Powerfest victory in three days.

“It feels good,” ‘lena900’ said. “I’ve been playing more tournament this year instead of cash games and it’s fun that you can be ranked and compete in a different way than in cash. ‘C Darwin2’ is a good friend of mine, so it’s even more good for that reason alone.”

‘lena900’ has $4.1 million in career online tournament winnings, breaking through the $4 million mark thanks to 30 in the money finishes in the last three days. He hails from the western coastal county of Vastra Gotaland.

‘C Darwin2’ had been #1 on PocketFives since February 10 – a seven-week reign. He swapped places with ‘lena900’ this week to land at #2, but only trails by 50 points.

‘C Darwin2′ finished second in the partypoker High Roller six days ago for almost $10,000. On the 20th of March, he won both the Sunday Supersonic and Sunday High Roller in an impressive showing on PokerStars’ French-facing site.

Up eight spots this week to #6 in the world is Chris ‘Big Huni’ Hunichen. He reached #1 on PocketFives last year and is fresh off an impressive last eight days during which he finished seventh in the PokerStars Super Tuesday, won the site’s $109 Sunday Kickoff, and took down the $320 No Limit Hold’em Six-Max. His total haul from those three tournaments was over $55,000.

Chris ‘Big Huni’ Hunichen moved up six spots

Hunichen has 559 top-three finishes and $8.3 million in career winnings, the eighth highest total of anyone. He’s the top-ranked online poker player that Costa Rica has to offer and owns $1.2 million in career live winnings to boot, according to the Hendon Mob.

“I have been focusing on working really hard to correct a few leaks I had last year that really put a dent in my overall ROI,” Hunichen said. “I finally feel like I’m back on top of the game and really excited for the near future grinding online and then heading to the WSOP. I have been playing this game a long time, but I feel like now I am finally peaking at the highest level I have ever played at and don’t plan on looking back. Expect bigger and better things to come from me in 2016.”

Greek poker player Damianos ‘damourinio’ Aslanidis is up 17 spots this week to #14, his highest ranking ever. Aslanidis won the Wednesday $320 on PokerStars one week ago for $25,000 and has 44 in the money finishes since then to bolster his resume. He’s the top-ranked player in Greece and owns $1.6 million in career winnings.

Malta’s Pim ‘joppiesaus’ de Goede moved up 19 spots to #25. After a two-week absence from cashing in online MTTs, de Goede made the money 10 times on March 27 to hit his all-time high in the rankings. He plays as ‘PIPI tapis!‘ on PokerStars, where he has $1.2 million in career winnings, more than half of his overall haul of a little over $2 million. He’s the #2 ranked player in his home country.

England’s Andy ‘wiisssppppaa’ Taylor hit #51 this week, up 24 places over last Wednesday, after wins in the PokerStars Bounty Builder Battle Royale and 888 Saturday Challenge. Those were the 37th and 38th online wins of his career and propelled him to the top of the leaderboard in the English county of Lancashire. Taylor’s big online claim to fame is winning a WCOOP bracelet last year in the Sunday Million for almost $300,000.

“It feels good to be going in the right direction again since I know I dropped off a lot after traveling for a month and only playing the odd session here and there,” Taylor said. “I’ve been playing really well lately and studying hard, which only bodes well for SCOOP.”

Johannes ‘Greenstone25’ Korsar won the partypoker High Roller and finished second in the PokerStars Bounty Builder in the last week for almost $30,000 combined. Consequently, the $7.6 million man landed at #62 worldwide in the rankings, up 19 spots. Amazingly, he’s the 14th ranked Swede despite being at #62, which should tell you all you need to know about Swedish poker domination.

Finally this week, Sweden’s ‘Discoovery‘ entered the top 100 at #77, his highest position ever. He turned in three wins on March 28: the 888 Monsoon, partypoker Heavyweight Rocky, and PokerStars $82 No Limit Hold’em Six-Max Hyper-Turbo. The trio of gold medals was worth almost $10,000 total and moved this up-and-coming player’s win total to 17. He has $678,000 in career online winnings, about half of which has come on PokerStars under the screen name ‘shipitftw911‘.

Here are the top 10 players in the rankings:

  1. lena900 – 7,277 points
  2. C Darwin2 – 7,226 points
  3. Ariados – 7,042 points
  4. veeea – 6,924 points
  5. SvZff – 6,728 points
  6. Big Huni – 6,689 points
  7. MendaLerenda – 6,506 points
  8. DeathbyQuads – 6,404 points
  9. eisenhower1 – 6,396 points
  10. jbrown8777 – 6,396 points