On the second-to-last day of the month, when Greek grinder Alex ‘Alexyo’ Theologis capped off a career win by taking down the WSOP Online Event #21 ($25,000 Super High Roller Championship) he not only earned a career-high score of more than $1.2 million and his first WSOP gold bracelet but he also earned enough leaderboard points to secure himself the Online Player of the Month award for August.

Theologis’ gold bracelet win was arguably the most difficult of the entire series. It came in the biggest buy-in event of the WSOP Online against one of the toughest fields of the month. With 255 entries and a prize pool of $6.2 million, Theologis outlasted the likes of Adrian Mateos, Rui Ferreira, Anatoly Filatov, and Kahle Burns at the final table and walked away with $1,218,123. He also picked up 2,499.50 leaderboard points, an enormous sum in any month.

But one win alone won’t lock up the Online Player of the Month and leading up to his seven-figure score, Theologis was enjoying plenty of success in August. Just one week earlier, he took third place in the PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker Event #14-H ($10,300 8-Max High Roller) for $137,191 (his fourth-highest career cash) and 519.86 points. Prior to that, there were three five-figure scores including a fourth-place finish in the August 22 edition of the PokerStars $1,050 High Roller for $21,398.

In total, Theologis scored more than $1.52 million in total earnings and 5,464 total leaderboard points in August and rose to hit a career-high ranking of #11 in the world (he currently sits at #12). And it appears that his August heater has continued into September as, in the final days of WCOOP, he took home a title in Event #95-H ($530 NLHE 8-Max Freezeout) for $56,520.

If it weren’t for Theologis pulling out the victory in the final days of August, Dan ‘SmilleThHero’ Smiljkovic would have captured his second career OPOM title with 5,063 total points.

Having won it back in October of 2020, Smiljkovic has seemingly been on a trajectory of “up only” ever since and, as of this week, the Austrian at an all-time high ranking of #4 in the world, sitting inside the top 5 for the very first time.

Smiljkovic earned over $979,000 over the course of 152 in-the-money finishes with his top score coming on August 11 when he defeated a field of 479 entries to win the GGPoker WSOP Online Event #8 ($5,000 6-Handed NLH Championship) for a career-high first-place prize of $425,553 (1,508.39 leaderboard points) as well as his first gold bracelet.

That wasn’t his only six-figure score of the month as he nearly paired his bracelet with a WCOOP win on August 31 when he finished as the runner-up in Event #42-H ($5,200 NLHE 8-Max) for another $113,745 (551.99). Add to that six five-figure scores, including a final table appearance at the GGPoker Super Millions on August 10 for $73,948 (381.05) and Smiljkovic had one of the most successful months of his online career.

Brazil’s #8-ranked pro Lucio ‘Llima92’ Lima rounded out the top three with 4,779 leaderboard points after picking up the top three scores of his career in August.

Lima went on a sun run at the end of the month, first when bested the 2,137-entry field on August 8 in the WSOP Online GIANT for $87,425 (856.27), his online poker top score. Two weeks later, he finished fourth in the $1,050 WSOP High Rollers Sunday Main Event on GGPoker for another $70,114 (429.58), and then, just four days later, he grabbed a PokerStars WCOOP title with a victory in Event #30-H ($2,100 8-Max Turbo) for $63,304 (506.36). In total, those three events alone earned Lima $220,844.

While Lima earned the bulk of his more than $579,000 in results in those three tournaments, he has proven himself to be a non-stop grinder. The Brazilian put in work, racking up 228 total results and playing everything in sight nearly every day of the month. The end result was Lima cracking the top 20 in the rankings, topping out at 17, and currently resting this week at #19. At the pace he’s going, Lima will crack the $5 million career earnings mark by the end of 2021.

August Player of the Month Results