Brazil's Pedro Garagnani hit the top spot in the Online Poker Rankings for the first time. (photo: Mundo Poker)

After weeks of hovering in the top 5 of the worldwide Online Poker Rankings, Brazilian crusher Pedro ‘pvigar’ Garagnani finally made his move and supplanted fellow countryman Bruno ‘brunovolks’ Volkmann as the #1-ranked online player in the world.

It’s Garagnani’s first trip to the top spot and he’s reached it with a combination producing impressive results while putting in a massive amount of volume. He has spent the better part of the past six months rising through the online rankings. Garagnani cracked the top 5 in the second half of 2021 and never let up on his schedule. He took full advantage of the fact that the 2021 World Series of Poker took a number of top competitors out of the online pool for weeks at a time and posted big-time results this fall.

It was clear when Bruno Volkmann took over the #1 spot in early November that he would eventually have to deal with Garagnani’s persistence. Finally, Garagnani’s put together a string of results that put him over the top. In November, he added on to his late October run where he scored a victory in the WPTDeepStacks High Roller on partypoker for $112,079 and 753.70 leaderboard points. His first significant score took place in the November 15 edition of the GGPoker $1,050 Sunday High Roller Main Event where a final table finish earned him $23,869 and an important 241.32 leaderboard points.

From there, a trio of results helped Garagnani get the job done. In the November 21 edition of the same GGPoker High Rollers Main Event, he finished in 4th place for $10,804 and 141.72 points. On the same day came the big score, a victory in the Winamax $1,050 Mini WSOP Super High Roller added $47,197 to his bankroll as well as the 435.52 points that locked up the top spot. He added on the next day with a fifth-place finish in the GGPoker $525 Bounty Hunters High Roller for another $16,956 and 270.89 points.

All told, in his second week as #1 Garagnani currently sits with 10,834 leaderboard points – 566 points above Volkmann in second place. That differential is not impossible to overcome in a single week, however, it’s a significant gap for any player to cover especially when one grinds as much as Garagnani.

For Volkmann to reclaim the rankings’ top spot, he’ll simply need to find more qualifying results than what he’s been bringing in over the last month. Don’t get it wrong, Volkmann still has had some very notable scores over the past 30 days including a bronze finish in the PokerStars $1,050 High Roller Club back on November 7 for $18,998 and 200.34 points.

However, in recent weeks, Volkmann’s pulled back on volume a tad and he’s only picked up one other leaderboard qualifying score. He had a final table finish in the PokerStars $530 High Roller Club Bounty Builder for $6,579 and 146.19 points. So while he hadn’t found those big scores that we’re accustomed to seeing from Volkmann, he remains in striking distance and, as one of the best in the world, you just never know when he’s going to win a major high roller or a large field event for heaps.

One player that would like to avoid seeing Volkmann bink a big one is Hungary’s #1 online grinder ‘kZhh’ who is currently sitting at a career-high worldwide rank of #3.

If that screen name looks familiar it’s because ‘kZhh’ has a habit of showing up big in some of the biggest tournaments of the year. This year alone, he took down the PokerStars SCOOP $10,300 Main Event for $1,130,396 and a massive 1,288.41 point score. He followed that up with a GGPoker Super MILLION$ victory in July for another $258,593 and 818.15 points. Finally, you might have seen him taking down the PokerStars WCOOP $25,000 High Roller in late August for $657,557 and 1,299.04 points.

‘kZhh’ is known for his major victories, but now he’s looking to add the title of online poker’s worldwide #1 to his resume. Of course, a massive score like the ones outlined above can help make that happen or he can continue his mid/high-stakes grinder and pick up more results as he did on November 22 when he finished in eighth place in the GGPoker $525 Bounty Hunters Main Event for $6,898 and 204.33 points.

Online Poker Rankings (Week of 12/2)

RANKNAMEPOINTS
1stPedro 'pvigar' Garagnani10,834
2ndBruno
'brunovolks' Volkmann
10,268
3rd'kZhh'9,978
4thJoao 'Naza114' Vieira9,921
5thEnrico 'whatisL0v3' Camosci9,894
6thDaniel 'SmilleThHero' Smiljkovic9,778
7thLucio 'Llima92' Lima9,722
8thAlex 'Alexyo' Theologis9,702
9thAnatoly 'nl_profit' Filatov9,377
10thRui 'RuiNF' Ferreira9,260