PocketFives Rankings: Matt 'mjw006' Wakeman Up 9 Spots to #4
It’s Wednesday, which means the PocketFives Rankings have been recalculated. And after a win in the PokerStars Sunday 500 over the weekend for $57,000 officially, Matt ‘mjw006‘ Wakeman moved up nine spots to #4 in the world, his best ranking ever.
The Sunday 500 attracted a field of 613 entrants and had a prize pool north of $300,000. In the end, Wakeman defeated Dimitar ‘bipbippp‘ Yosifov and earned 553 points for the rankings. He calls Sydney, Australia home and won a WCOOP $215 No Limit Hold’em Cubed event in September for $82,000, his second largest online tournament score to date.
Wakeman now has 150 tracked wins online, 411 top-three finishes, and is up to $5.5 million in career online MTT winnings, two-thirds of which has come on PokerStars. Wakeman is a three-time PocketFives Triple Crown winner, having last accomplished the feat in 2013, and is the #1 player in Australia. He has another $148,000 in live tournament winnings, according to the Hendon Mob.
Wakeman told PocketFives, “It feels good to get that high in the rankings. I guess I certainly have been running very well over the past few months. 2016 has been very kind thus far.” However, a prolonged stint in the top five doesn’t seem to be in the cards, as Wakeman is headed to the Aussie Millions and will be focusing his attention on live poker.
Still camped out at #1 in the world this week is Sweden’s ‘eisenhower1‘. He has ruled the roost since September 30 and has three-dozen in the money finishes already in January, including a victory in the Winamax XTASE a week ago for $3,800. His PLB score is 7,371 points and he leads second-ranked ‘veeea‘ by 146.
Another Swede, ‘Ariados‘, moved up from #14 to #10 this week, two spots off his all-time high of #8 set last year. ‘Ariados’ won the PokerStars $109 No Limit Hold’em Turbo two days ago for $5,900 and, on January 5, found the winner’s circle in the PartyPoker High Roller, Winamax High Roller, and PokerStars.fr Full KO for almost $25,000 total. He has eight tracked wins since the end of November and is poised to climb even further in the rankings in the weeks to come.
There are nine players from Sweden in the top 20 of the rankings. One of the country’s biggest movers and shakers this week was ‘Pot4teUS‘, who rose 18 spots to settle at #17. ‘Pot4teUS’ finished third in the PokerStars Sunday 500 over the weekend, the same tournament Wakeman won, and earned $30,000. The same day, he took down the PokerStars.fr Sunday High Roller for over $8,000. On PokerStars, you can find him under the handle ‘TanTanSWE‘.
Ukraine’s ‘psyhoagromor‘ moved up 24 spots to #47. He had seven cashes on January 12 alone and owns 33 in the money finishes this month. ‘psyhoagromor’ is the top-ranked Ukrainian and was ranked as high as #16 in the world in 2014.
In 57th place this week, a 25-spot improvement on a week ago, is ‘emeriaa‘. The Fin final tabled a PokerStars.fr tournament over the weekend for $10,000 and has five scores of at least $5,000 in January. He was absent from the felts between late November and the New Year, but was ranked as high as #17 last year. ’emeriaa’ is the #2 player in Finland and tops in the city of Jyvaskyla.
Costa Rica’s Grayson ‘gray31‘ Ramage reentered the top 100 at #91. Ramage was a top-ten player in 2011 and won the PokerStars Big $109 four days ago for $16,000. He has amassed $5.5 million in career online tournament earnings and is the second-ranked player in Costa Rica.
Ramage told PocketFives, “I’ve been on the edge of the rankings for a while and just don’t put in the volume to get up there much anymore.” He also shared his 2016 poker plans: “This year, it’ll be more playing and coaching for me. I’ll be playing LAPC and Bay 101 next month and mainly focusing on online until then.”
Here are the top 10 players in the PocketFives Rankings this week along with the PLB score for each:
