Rocco 'RoccoGe' Palumbo Up 15 Spots in PocketFives Rankings to #8
There was a lot of movement in the top 10 of the PocketFives Online Poker Rankings this week. What didn’t change, however, was the #1 ranked player in the world, ‘C Darwin2‘, who is enjoying his second straight week in the top spot.
What did change was the makeup of the top 10, which includes three new players. First, Greece’s Damianos ‘damourinio’ Aslanidis moved up seven spots to #7 in the world, his highest ranking ever. He made a splash in a PokerStars Spring Championship of Online Poker $2,100 No Limit Hold’em Six Max, finishing in fourth place for $108,000 and 542 PLB Points.
Aslanidis is closing in on $2 million in career online tournament winnings as a result and is the top-ranked player in his home country.
Also riding a major SCOOP score into the top 10 of the rankings is Rocco ‘RoccoGe’ Palumbo, who moved up 15 spots to #8, his best showing ever. The World Series of Poker bracelet winner finished second in a SCOOP $2,100 No Limit Hold’em Eight Max High Roller over the weekend for a whopping $222,000 and 847 PLB Points. It was his largest online cash ever.
Palumbo, from Genoa, Italy, is up to almost 400 top-three finishes in online MTTs, is about to pass $4 million in lifetime winnings, and just hit $2 million on PokerStars, where he plays under the handle ‘sephirot88‘.
“I’m super happy with the result that put me at #8,” Palumbo said of his SCOOP score. “It’s the first time that I’ve really been doing great on PokerStars.com. I look forward to attacking the rankings now that I’m in the black.”
The third and final newcomer to the top 10 of the rankings this week was Joao ‘joaomathias’ Mathias, who rose six spots to #9. Mathias was ranked #1 on PocketFives as recently as January 2015, so being in the top 10 isn’t anything new, but this time around his march toward the top comes on the heels of two recent wins.
The first came on partypoker in the site’s Heavyweight $50,000 Guaranteed Rebuy, a tournament he took down for $11,000 and 223 PLB Points. Then he found the winner’s circle of the PokerStars $320 No Limit Hold’em Six Max for $7,500 and 166 PLB Points. Those two brought his career win total to 260.
Outside of the top 10, Matas ‘bebaimis777’ Cimbolas was up 32 spots to #17. He was the runner-up in a SCOOP $2,100 No Limit Hold’em event for over a quarter-of-a-million dollars and almost 1,000 PLB Points, shooting him up the leaderboard into the top 20. This is the highest he has ever been ranked on PocketFives and, to boot, Cimbolas just passed $2 million in career online tournament winnings.
“I feel great about it,” Cimbolas said. “I am focusing on my game right now.”
Uruguay’s ‘elHongo‘ reentered the top 100 this week at #36 in the world, one spot shy of his all-time high set in 2015. He defeated ‘Cimbolas’ in the aforementioned SCOOP $2,100 No Limit Hold’em event and bagged a healthy $357,000 along with 1,409 PLB Points. He’s the top-ranked online poker player in the South American nation and plays as ‘elmelogno4‘ on PokerStars.
Johannes ‘Greenstone25’ Korsar moved up from #75 to #38. With almost $8 million in career online tournament winnings, the 13th most of anyone in the online poker community, Korsar final tabled the SCOOP Super Tuesday last week for almost $45,000 and won the Hot $109 over the weekend for another $25,000. That was his 157th career win.
Australia’s Martin ‘Tiny_molester’ Kozlov moved up 45 spots to #43 on PocketFives. Like other players who shot up the leaderboard, Kozlov excelled in early SCOOP action, finishing fifth in a $21,000 No Limit Hold’em Eight Max High Roller for $190,000 over the weekend. Kozlov is the second-ranked online poker player in Australia and was ranked as high as #2 in the world last year.
Finally, Dylan ‘ImaLucSac’ Linde is up 43 spots to #46, his highest ranking ever. The longtime PocketFiver has three top-10 finishes in SCOOP events this year, including a sixth place finish in a $1,050 Pot Limit Omaha Six Max Rebuy on May 10 for $27,000.
Linde also finished eighth in a SCOOP $2,100 No Limit Hold’em Eight Max event on the 15th. When the final cards were dealt, he Tweeted, “Another day, another 8th place in a SCOOP-H. All the pain and all the profits combined yet again.”
This week’s top 10:
- C Darwin2 – 8,136 points
- joaosimaobh – 8,052 points
- lena900 – 7,753 points
- 1_conor_b_1 – 7,315 points
- Ariados – 7,087 points
- Big Huni – 7,044 points
- damourinio – 6,938 points
- RoccoGe – 6,860 points
- joaomathias – 6,808 points
- moorman1 – 6,740 points
