PocketFives Rankings: 'veeea' New #1 Worldwide
We have a new #1 ranked player on PocketFives. After a 16-week run at #1, Sweden’s ‘eisenhower1‘ dropped to #2 in the PocketFives Rankings this week. Your new #1: ‘veeea‘, who has been ranked #2 for much of the last four months.
‘veeea’ has been on fire in January. He has won seven tournaments so far this month, including the PokerStars $215 No Limit Hold’em Turbo (twice), PokerStars $109 No Limit Hold’em Turbo, PartyPoker Heavyweight Drago, PartyPoker High Roller, PokerStars $55 No Limit Hold’em Deep Stack, and PokerStars $33 Cubed. All told, the seven wins were worth over $35,000 and just over 1,000 PLB Points, the measure used to determine the rankings.
‘veeea’ has 7,220 PLB Points and leads ‘eisenhower1’ by 107. Therefore, there could easily be a changing of the guard again next Wednesday when the scores are recalculated.
‘eisenhower1’ had been ranked #1 since September 30, and his 16 weeks in the top spot tied for the eighth longest reign by anyone. Here’s a look at the longest stints at #1 in the PocketFives Rankings over the years:
Cliff ‘JohnnyBax‘ Josephy – 74 weeks (April 18, 2005 to September 18, 2006)
Chad ‘M8kingmoves‘ Batista – 45 weeks (August 22, 2007 to July 2, 2008)
Steve ‘gboro780‘ Gross – 24 weeks (February 25, 2009 to August 12, 2009)
Cal ‘cal42688‘ Anderson – 22 weeks (September 5, 2012 to February 6, 2013)
Alex ‘AJKHoosier1‘ Kamberis – 18 weeks (September 24, 2008 to January 28, 2009)
Griffin ‘Flush_Entity‘ Benger – 18 weeks (March 14, 2012 to July 18, 2012)
Steve ‘gboro780’ Gross – 17 weeks (February 24, 2010 to June 23, 2010)
Nico ‘PokerKaiser‘ Fierro – 16 weeks (May 6, 2015 to August 26, 2015)
‘eisenhower1’ – 16 weeks (September 30, 2015 to January 20, 2016)
Chris ‘Gettin Daize‘ Oliver – 14 weeks (August 28, 2010 to November 24, 2010)
Sweden’s ‘Ariados‘ moved up three spots from #10 to #7 this week. Like ‘veeea’, he has made mincemeat of the online poker felts this month, winning nine MTTs: the PokerStars.fr Full KO (twice), Winamax High Roller, PartyPoker High Roller (twice), PokerStars $109 No Limit Hold’em Turbo, iPoker Sunday Masters, and iPoker €25,000 Grand Tuesday.
This is the highest ‘Ariados’ has ever been ranked on PocketFives. He plays as ‘Sasuke234‘ on PokerStars, where he has $2.1 million in tracked winnings. ‘Ariados’ won his second PocketFives Triple Crown three days ago and is the third-ranked player in Sweden.
‘Ariados’ told PocketFives that being ranked #7 is “very motivating.” When asked if he could take over the top spot, the Swede responded, “I don’t think it’s impossible by any means, but I’d have to continue to put in a lot of volume and also hopefully score something bigger, but I’m gonna need quite a bit of luck for that part.”
One of the biggest jumps of the week inside the top 100 went to Malta’s Pim ‘joppiesaus‘ de Goede, who shot up 42 spots from #70 to #28. He won the Sunday Warm-Up over the weekend for $80,000 and 714 PLB Points, his third largest tracked score to date. This is the highest de Goede has ever been ranked on PocketFives.
“I’ve been dedicating more time to my MTT and short-stack play over the last year or so,” de Goede said. “I feel like things are going well regarding my skill level, although I still feel like I am a cash game, deep-stack player by heart. I do spend a lot of time on the cash game tables still.”
Having found himself in the top 30, de Geode admits being that high is more about bragging rights within his circle of friends than anything else.
“I am excited to have a great result in the Warm-Up and move up in the rankings. For me, it’s more about the fun competition between friends to see who can obtain the highest ranking,” said de Geode. “However, it’s a pity that the highest ranked player is by no means the best player. Who is going to tell me how I should be playing my J-3 double-suited under-the-gun now? I am #28 in the world; I must have figured it all out.”
London’s ‘10111420‘ reentered the top 100 at #69, 14 spots off his all-time high. He is fresh off hitting $1 million in career online MTT winnings and took down the PokerStars Big $55 for $13,000 four days ago. He is the top-ranked player in the English city and #8 in the UK.
Finally this week, Ozgur ‘phaplap‘ Arda returned to the top 100 at #85, four spots shy of his best ranking ever. Arda started off 2016 with a bang by winning the PokerStars Sunday Supersonic for $45,000, one of three tracked victories this month. For his career, the Turkish player has 3,307 in the money finishes for an average of $713 each.
Here are the top 10 players in the rankings this week along with the PLB score for each:
