Every poker player hopes to start the New Year off on the right foot. Swedish crusher ‘lena900’  won the January PLB race with an impressive 3,933.25 PLB points.

His amazing month cumulated with him earning enough PLB points to catapult him into the worldwide #2 ranking. He did this by putting up massive results in both 888poker’s XL Blizzard series as well as partypoker’s online series, Powerfest. In total, ‘lena900’ posted eight five-figure scores with his victory in Powerfest Event #5 for $26,899 and 328.63 PLB points leading the way. That victory came just 24 hours after he picked up over $50,000 in a pair of final table finishes during XL Blizzard and a High Roller victory over on bwin.com for another $25,000. Simply put, ‘lena900’ had a monster January.

Ukraine’s #1 online pro Roman ‘Romeopro’ Romanovsky (3770.76) also found success in the first month of the year. Romanovsky was able to put together a winning performance in the PokerStars $530 Sunday 500 on January 21 for over $37,000 and 458.80 PLB points. Even though that score brought him his largest PLB score it wasn’t his largest cash of the month. He notched two over $40,000 scores with a pair of runner-up finishes during Powerfest. This helped push the longtime player into striking distance of $8.5 million in lifetime earnings and making $9 million in 2018 more than a possibility but extremely likely.

The distance between the second and third place in the January PLB place couldn’t be closer. Hungary’s Andreas ‘probirs’ Nemeth (3770.57) ended up .19 points behind Romanovsky. The worldwide #4 ranked online player put together a staggering last week of the month by torturing his opponents during Powerfest. In just the last three days of the month alone, Nemeth scored three major victories. First, a win in Event #25 for over $82,000, then a win in Event #32 for $20,839 and, on the same day, first place in Event #33 for over $47,000. The insane heater came on a month where he played moderate volume, but his total results skyrocketed to over $375,000.

If there’s a list of big-time results, you know that Sweden’s ‘C Darwin2’ (3,517.95) is going to be on it. The current king of the worldwide rankings started off the year the same way he ended 2017: destroying tournaments. On January 1 he notched what would end up being his largest PB score of the month by taking third in a $1,000 PokerStars event for $39,313 and 324.28 PLB points. ‘C Darwin2’ had enough of a lead in the Worldwide Rankings to take a little time off and so his schedule was more sporadic than it had been in months prior. Still, he was able to rack up five five-figure scores and 32 final table appearances.

Conor ‘1_conor_b_1’ Beresford (3,198.70) from the UK had himself a top 5 month as well. Beresford did the bulk of the damage by winning the PokerStars $2,100 Sunday High Roller for over $62,000 and 549.55 PLB points. The current worldwide #10 followed up that score one day later with his second largest haul of the month when he final tabled the Powerfest Event #26 $5,200 No Limit Hold’em for an additional $33,150.

Russia’s ‘hellohellohello’ (3,153.06) checks in at #6 for the month of January. In the same Powerfest event that Beresford took fifth for $33,150, ‘hellohellohello’ finished as the runner-up for over $103,000 (nearly a career high for him) and 471.16 PLB points.

Off the island of Papua New Guinea, ‘dulek’ (2,941.27) comes in at #7 for the month. The high-volume grinder scored the victory in a $100 $100,000 GTD tournament for $38,069 and 454.86 PLB points. The big-time score helped elevate him to an all-time career high ranking of #61 in the world.

Guntis ‘lovefee’ Alaskans (2,887.42) from Latvia also used a big month of January, in which he came in at #8, to hit a career-high ranking. He moved up to #12 in the world on the back of his finish runner-up in the PokerStars Sunday Warm-up for $33,868.

Coming in at #9 for January is partypoker ambassador Joao ‘joaosimaobh’ Simao (2,748.23). After taking some well-earned time away from the online tables at the end of 2017, he returned with a vengeance annihilating numerous Powerfest events. He took down Event #13-M for over $16,000 and then, days later scored a victory in Event #17-H for over $62,000 and 447.21 PLB points.  He wasn’t done, not by a long shot, final tabling Event #24-H for over $20,000 and then again winning Event #32 for over $50,000. It’s safe to say that Simao is back.

Wrapping up the top 10 of the first month of 2018 is Swedish online legend ‘Sheater’ (2,655.78). The former #1-ranked player recorded his highest PLB score back on January 7 when he final tabled a $200 PokerStars contest for 453.95 PLB points and over $33,000.

January 2018 PLB Rankings Top 10