Two members of the top 10 surpassed $9 million in lifetimes earnings this week.

Once again, the top spot in the PocketFives.com Worldwide Rankings belongs to the super Swede ‘C Darwin2’.

Though he slipped just beneath the 12,000 PLB point threshold that he’d been keeping for the past couple weeks, the phenom enjoys a lead of well over 2,000 PLB points from the next closest player. ‘C Darwin2’ continues to put the pressure on those who would look to catch him with a pair of qualifying cashes this week, both resulting in five-figure scores. This included a runner-up finish in Event #131 of Winamax’s W Series for $13,553 and 193.63 PLB points.

Another reoccurring theme in recent weeks has been top-tier players taking their shot at dethroning ‘C Darwin2’ and this week it’s ‘hellohellohello’s turn. The Russian has ascended to the #2 ranking for the first time in his career after going on an absolute tear on April 8. He earned over $85,000 on that day alone, the bulk of it thanks to his victory in the bwin.com Super Sunday Super High Roller where he took home $48,750 and 387.30 PLB points. He also notched another pair of qualifying cashes helping him become the latest player that could conceivably make the steep climb to the #1 perch.

Last week’s #2, Andres ‘probirs’ Nemeth, drops back to the #3 ranking this week mostly due to low volume. He was unable to record any qualifying cashes and so he slips from his career-high ranking but remains a mere 188.13 points behind ‘hellohellohello’.

Sweden’s ‘lena900’ also took a small step backward as he also had but a single qualifying PLB cash this week. A final table finish in the $2,100 Sunday High Roller on PokerStars resulted in a $15,592 score and 170.27 PLB points. That result also helped ‘lena900’ cross $9.5 million in lifetime earnings and with some huge online series coming up in the next month, including PokerStars SCOOP and partypoker’s POWERFEST, he may find himself a member of the prestigious $10 million club sooner than later.

Rounding out the top 5 this week is ‘European’, who maintains his same ranking from last week with the help of a final table finish in the PokerStars Bigger $215 for $3,213 and 110.79 PLB points. It should be noted that like Nemeth and ‘lena900’ just ahead of him in the rankings, ‘European’ maintains a PLB score of above 9000. Any one of these elite players could find themselves in the midst of a heater and rocket up the rankings to be the next player to challenge ‘C Darwin2’.

The bottom half of the top 10 saw very little movement this week with both Steven ‘SvZff’ van Zadelhoff and Ramiro ‘Ramiro’ Petrone both holding fast in their respective #6 and #7 positions. While van Zadelhoff seemed to be taking a breather, Petrone put in work and recorded three qualifying PLB cashes. The three podium finished totaled nearly $25,000 in earnings for the Argentinan and has him in position to make another run back into the top five.

Roman ‘Romeopro’ Romanovsky and Conor ‘1_conor_b_1’ Beresford swapped places with Romanovsky rising to the #8 rankings and Beresford slipping to #9. Beresford didn’t have any volume to speak of this week while Romanovsky took third place in the PokerStars $530 Bounty Builder Hight Roller for over $18,000 and 233.78 PLB points, enough to help him shift up this week.

Johannes ‘Greenstone25’ Korsar completes the top 10 this week. The Swedish grinder with over $11 million in lifetime earnings, joined those would take their foot off the gas this week, likely preparing for the large volume series that are right around the corner.

PocketFives Worldwide Top 25 Rankings

RANK NAME POINTS PREVIOUS
1 C Darwin2 11,913.36 1
2 hellohellohello 9,573.40 4
3 Andres ‘probirs’ Nemeth 9,385.95 2
4 lena900 9,234.95 3
5 European 9,186.70 5
6 Steven ‘SvZff’ van Zadelhoff 8,986.06 6
7 Ramiro ‘Ramiro’ Petrone 8,661.43 7
8 Roman ‘Romeopro’ Romanovsky 8,446.38 9
9 Conor ‘1_conor_b_1’ Beresford 8,362.41 8
10 Johannes ‘Greenstone25’ Korsar 8,288.90 10
11 kofi89 8,162.23 11
12 Ariados 8,146.69 12
13 Guntis ‘lovefee’ Aleskins 7,905.87 13
14 Patrick ‘pleno1’ Leonard 7,784.12 23
15 Joao ‘joaosimaobh’ Simao 7,705.96 14
16 DamageAP 7,651.49 16
17 Fabrizio ‘SixthSenSe19’ Gonzalez 7,638.42 15
18 Connor ‘blanconegro’ Drinan 7,497.20 19
19 GINS FINEST 7,460.33 18
20  josef_shvejk 7,439.46 17
21 Sheater 7,422.04 21
22 Flat 7,339.79 20
23 rolandbauer 7,200.25 22
24 NoPlanB 7,100.49 25
25 joppiesaus 7,051.82 26