It should be no surprise that Sweden’s #1-ranked player is also, still, the #1-ranked player in the world. ‘C Darwin2’ may have slipped a little in the PLB points, but still holds a commanding point lead over #2-ranked Steven ‘SvZff’ van Zadelhoff to remain the only #1 player that 2018 has known.

It was a low volume week for ‘C Darwin2’ as the superstar only recorded nine total cashes, none of which qualified to add to his PLB point total. With aging results being a factor, ‘C Darwin2’ slipped back to under 11,000 total points, currently sitting with 10,665. Still, the total is more than enough to fend off any would-be challengers to his current run as #1 as he has an over 1300 point buffer between himself and van Zadelhoff.

For his part, van Zadelhoff has even fewer results than ‘C Darwin2’ as the Malta pro seemingly didn’t even click open an online poker client this week having not recorded a result since January 11. This leaves the door open for Sweden’s ‘lena900’ to make his move up the ladder.

‘lena900’ has been holding down the #3 spot for weeks now. He was never in too much danger of slipping down the leaderboard and there has been a persistent gap keeping him from catching van Zadelhoff. This week, with van Zadelhoff’s absence, ‘lena900’ gained some ground when he took third place in the partypoker Super High Roller for $20,891 and over 200 PLB points. The chasm is now just under 800 points, which is still significant but not insurmountable should a gifted player like ‘lena900’ have a week like Andres ‘probirs’ Nemeth had two weeks ago.

‘Hungary’s Nemeth rocketed eight spots two weeks ago from #12 to #4 and this week he held his ground. Continuing to add on to his recent bout of run good, Nemeth scored a pair of qualifying cashes on January 14. The first was a runner-up performance in the PokerStars Bounty Builder for $13,717 and then he scored another second place finish in the partypoker Super High Roller for an additional $33,430.

With there being no shifts in the top 4, Swedish countrymen Andreas ‘r4ndomr4gs’ Beggren (#5) and ‘Sheater’ (#6) once again climb up a spot in tandem. Both former #1-ranked players rise one rung in the top 10 this week.

Russia’s ‘josef_shvejk’ falls into the #7 ranking while Conor ‘1_conor_b_1’ Beresford makes yet another push into the top 10, ascending to the #8 spot. Beresford scored three qualifying cashes this week, two of which were outright victories. The UK pro took down the bwin.com Eliminator Warm Up for $5,540 and days later followed it up with a victory in the PokerStars $55 Daily Marathon for $8,286.

Russian countrymen ‘hellohellohello’ (#9) and ‘veeea’ (#10) complete the top 10.

Argentina’s Ramiro ‘rayastar’ Petrone made the largest leap of the week jumping from #25 to #13, an all-time high ranking for him. The move comes thanks to a trio of qualifying cashes, topped by his runner-up finish in the PokerStars $215 Monday 6-max for nearly $15,000 and over 232 PLB points.

This week also saw some notable names rejoining the ranks of the top 25 as Brazil’s Pedro ‘PaDiLhA SP’ Padilha (#22), Sweden’s ‘inhoo’ (#24) and Ukraine’s Roman ‘Romeopro33’ Romanovsky (#25) all rose in the rankings this week.