It wasn’t a landslide, but with one massive score, Brazil’s Renan Carlos Bruschiput himself in position to win the December Monthly PocketFives Leaderboard, or PLB. Two other victories helped put him over the top for his first MPLB title. Bruschi took down the leaderboard in December with 2,989 PLB Points, 276 more than the next closest person.

Bruschi amassed 2,503 PLB Points in one fallen swoop by winning the $5 million guaranteed PokerStars Sunday Million two days after Christmas. There were 31,335 entries and the prize pool swelled to $6.2 million. Bruschi took home $354,000 for first place.

Two other victories and 16 top-10 finishes were enough to put him over the top in the MPLB race. “I have been seeking this for years,” he told PocketFives about his Sunday Million win.

The Sunday Million ended in a seven-way chop that week. Bruschi told us, “I think I was lucky in table selection throughout the tournament. No opponents gave me much trouble. I actually did not want to chop because the skill level of the final table was very weak. The only good guy who might have bothered me was ‘WhiteRabbito‘ and he was the short stack. When he doubled up, we decided to see the numbers and since I would earn more than third place prize money, I accepted.”

The result was, as you might have guessed, his largest online poker score to date. He has since moved up to #176 worldwide in the PocketFives Rankings, his highest position ever.

As far as the $354,000 goes, Bruschi plans to dunk some of it into real estate. He’ll also pour a portion of it back into his poker bankroll. He plans to up his average buy-in “a bit.”

Bruschi added that his victory may also raise his level of visibility within the Brazil poker community, telling us, “Poker’s growth in Brazil is absurd. Many people came to me to give them lessons and ask for poker tips. I was known on the national scene already. I have four BSOP final tables, three FTOPS final tables, and a SCOOP final table, but winning the Sunday Million has greatly increased the number of followers I have.”

Speaking of Brazil, Bruschi is the 17th-ranked player in the South American nation. His MPLB win was the fifth one for Brazil, the sixth most of any nation. You can find him on PokerStars under the screen name ‘Internett93o‘.

Bruschi got started in poker during college. He began playing with friends and realized poker was not simply a game of chance. As he put it, “I decided to study poker after graduating with a degree in in dentistry and dedicated myself exclusively to poker. I have dentistry in mind if I don’t succeeded at poker. My parents always supported me in that decision.”

He has had some success on the live felts as well. Last October, he won $10,000 after finishing sixth in a BSOP High Roller Event in Brasilia. He earned about the same amount for taking fourth in a No Limit Hold’em Six-Max event in 2011 during the series’ stop in Sao Paulo. All told, the Brazilian owns $35,000 in career live winnings, according to the Hendon Mob, a number we’d expect to see him improve upon now that he has built a bankroll.

Away from the game, Bruschi devotes much of his time to his family and the dating scene. He plays football, follows the NFL, and is an avid fan of Sport Club International. He travels to play high-stakes Pot Limit Omaha and also to live events.

Here were the top 10 finishers in the December Monthly PLB:

1. Renan Carlos Bruschi – 2,989.46 points
2. Smeckten – 2,713.68 points
3. Legenden – 2,592.37 points
4. Aggro Santos – 2,344.90 points
5. Ballage87 – 2,269.88 points
6. C Darwin2 – 2,160.14 points
7. Zackattak13 – 2,118.85 points
8. SvZff – 2,115.44 points
9. joaomathias – 2,102.89 points
10. Ariados – 2,099.98 points