For the first time in the post-Black Friday history of the PocketFives Rankings, the top five spots all belong to players from one country. Anybody who has been paying attention to the rankings for the last few years won’t be surprised at all to learn that it’s the Swedes who now go #1 through #5.

Despite not posting a single cash since June 8, ‘lena900’ held on to the #1 ranking but now has a real threat chasing him. ‘C Darwin2’ moved up from #3 to #2 this past week after taking down the PokerStars Big $109 on June 22. The win was worth $9,608 and 233.02 PLB points. ‘C Darwin2’ has been #1 five times in his career, most recently in September 2016.

Falling from #2 to #3 this week, ‘inhoo’ has not had a qualifying cash late May as he is part of the Swedish contingent in Las Vegas for the World Series of Poker. ‘Ariados’ maintained his #4 ranking while also being unable to play tournaments on ROW sites while in Las Vegas.

While three of the top four are in Las Vegas, Andreas ‘r4ndomr4gs’ Berggren moved up to #5 by piling up points while the others are away. Berggren won the PokerStars Bounty Builder for $16,003 and 355.18 points on June 18 and then closed out the week with a win in the PokerStars Hot $215 for $8,721/212.60. Those two cashes allowed Berggren to move up three spots.

The highest ranking non-Swede is former #1-ranked Nicolas ‘PokerKaiser’ Fierro at #6. The Chilean grinder put in a full schedule this past week but was unable to find a score big enough to add to his PLB score. Fabrizio ‘SixthSenSe19’ Gonzalez, the last non-Swede to hold down the #1 spot, hasn’t cashed in an online event since June 12 but stayed in the top 10, finishing the week at #7, down two spots from the previous week. Andres ‘probirs’ Nemeth went from #7 to #8.

Another Swede and former #1-ranked player moved back into the top 10 this week. ‘Sheater’ went from #12 to #9. Rounding out the top 10 was Conor ‘1_conor_b_1’ Beresford.

As if having six of the top 10 isn’t dominating enough, two Swedish players sit just outside of the top of the list.
Johannes ‘Greenstone25’ Korsar stayed at #11 while ‘DeathbyQuads’ went from #14 to #12.

RANK PLAYER POINTS PREVIOUS
1 lena900 9,366.42 1
2 C Darwin2 9,264.21 3
3 inhoo 9,110.20 2
4 Ariados 8,804.08 4
5 Andreas ‘r4ndomr4gs’ Berggren 7,775.86 8
6 Nicolas ‘PokerKaiser’ Fierro 7,751.28 6
7 Fabrizio ‘SixthSenSe19’ Gonzalez 7,617.92 5
8 Andres ‘probirs’ Nemeth 7,539.55 7
9 Sheater 7,171.32 12
10 Conor ‘1_conor_b_1’ Beresford 7,162.68 10