'C Darwin2' surpasses 11,000 PLB points yet again in route to retaining his #1 ranking.

New faces join the PocketFives Worldwide top 10 this week after massive scores in partypoker’s Powerfest continues to help some of the best in the world accumulate points.

One thing that hasn’t changed though is ‘C Darwin2’s reign as the #1 online player in the world. The Swede still commands a lead of over 1000 PLB points over his would-be usurpers and remains the only player in the land with over 10,000 PLB points. Unlike last week, ’C Darwin2’ padded his PLB point lead with a trio of PLB qualifying scores, punctuated by his runner-up finish in the PokerStars Sunday Warm-Up for nearly $40,000 and just over 400 PLB points.

Rising to the #2 spot for the second time in three weeks is ‘C Darwin2’s countryman, ‘lena900’. The tournament specialist is back to being the main challenger to dethrone ‘CD2’ by racking up a number of qualified PLB scores totaling more than 1000 points. In addition to all those PLB points, ‘lena900’ banked roughly $140,000 thanks to a pair of scores of over $30,000 each. After this week he’s now only $43,000 away from $9 million in lifetime earnings. Amazingly, he breached the $8 million mark less than three months ago.

Last week’s #2, Andreas ‘probirs’ Nemeth, drops to #3 this week. He trails ‘lena900’ by only 126 PLB points and after his mammoth week last week, he also dropped down in volume. The Hungarian only registered eight total cashes in the past seven days, but two of them were good enough to help his PLB score.

Speaking of light volume, superstar online grinder, and #4 in the rankings this week, Steven ‘SvZff’ van Zadelhoff is still on an online poker hiatus. Records will show that he has not cashed in an online tournament in a month. His low output is largely due to him being in attendance at the Aussie Millions where, unfortunately, it is no longer legal to fire up an online poker client and play.

‘hellohellohello’ maintains his status as a top 5 player in the world for the third week in a row. The Russian didn’t have a hefty online schedule and actually did not record any qualified PLB cashes this week, however, his previous scores were enough to keep him right where he is. Unlike last week though, where he had a roughly 500 point PLB lead over the #6 ranked player, the field is now right on his heels with a number of players looking to break into the top 5.

The latest player looking to make a big move made the largest leap of any player in the top 10. ‘European’ crashed the top 10 party after a humungous week that helped him skyrocket from #34 last week to #6 this week. His rapid rise was thanks to the large prize pools in partypoker’s Powerfest and his massive success in them in the middle of this week. ‘European’ raked in three five-figure scores for a total of over $148,000. The top score was his win in Powerfest Event #46-M for $86,000 and over 700 PLB points. His surge puts him right in the thick of the top 10, trailing ‘hellohellohello’ by only 164 points.

Ukraine’s Roman ‘Romeopro’ Romanovsky holds down the #7 spot again this week. He finished the week with two-thirds of a PocketFives Triple Crown taking down the 888poker Whale for $34,375 on February 4 and then two days later finishing in first in a PokerStars $109 tournament. Romanovsky also scored big during Powerfest with a fourth-place finish in Event #45-H for over $34,000.

partypoker ambassador Patrick ‘pleno1’ Leonard jettisoned into the top 10 as well this week. Rising seven places to the #8 spot, the former worldwide #1 ranked player crushed one of the largest tournaments on his home turf when he won Powerfest Event #46-H $1M Gtd. Leonard won $207,978 and over 1000 PLB points for the big-time victory. In addition to the win, the UK’s #1-ranked player also picked up four additional qualifying PLB scores to amass 1725.09 points for the week.

Fellow Team partypoker pro Joao ‘joaosimoabh’ Simoa slips three spots to #9 this week. The Brazilian’s week peaked with a final table finish during Powerfest Event #48-H  for $13,860.

Argentinan superstar Ramiro ‘rayastar’ Petrone continues his climb into the ranks of the elite, entering the top 10 for the very first time in his career. He took down the aforementioned Powerfest Event #48-H for $195,720, a career-high score for him, and 1024.70 PLB points. The six-figure win all but assures him a mention in next week’s Milestones column as he currently sits less than $5,000 from surpassing $3 million in lifetime earnings.

Other notable moves in the top 25 include ‘Sheater’, Andreas ‘r4andomr4gs’ Berggren and ‘josef_shvejk’ all falling out of the top 10. Sweden’s ‘Ariados’ climbed back into the top 25, reaching all the way to #13 while Russia’s ‘NoPlanB’ also comes in at #21 for the first time in 2018.

RANK PLAYER POINTS PREVIOUS
1 C Darwin2 10,635.56 1
2 lena900 9,540.83 4
3 Andreas ‘probirs’ Nemeth 9,414.79 2
4 Steven ‘SvZff’ van Zadelhoff 8,834.11 3
5 hellohellohello 8,366.26 5
6 European 8,201.50 34
7 Roman ‘Romeopro’ Romanovsky 8,196.68 7
8 Patrick ‘pleno1’ Leonard 7,996.74 15
9 Joao ‘joaosimaobh’ Simao 7,980.63 6
10 Ramiro ‘rayastar’ Petrone 7,956.99 14
11 josef_shvejk 7,592.11 10
12 Conor ‘1_conor_b_1’ Beresford 7,525.50 11
13 Ariados 7,462.47 28
14 Johannes ‘Greenstone25’ Korsar 7,432.02 13
15 Sheater 7,422.30 9
16 Andreas ‘r4ndomr4gs’ Berggren 7,389.08 8
17 Fabrizio ‘SixthSenSe19’ Gonzalez 7,314.10 12
18 Guntis ‘lovefee’ Aleksins 6,890.03 17
19 veeea 6,853.19 16
20 Jerry ‘perrymejsen’ Ödeen 6,820.99 18
21 NoPlanB 6,669.03 26
22 Chris ‘Apotheosis’ Kruk 6,635.17 20
23 Jonathan ‘proudflop’ Proudfoot 6,529.21 25
24 sitpro2011 6,521.16 21
25 PaDiLhA SP 6,520.89 24