Brazil's Bruno Volkmann takes over at the new worldwide #1-ranked player in the world. (photo courtesy: SuperPoker)

It was a long grind for Brazil’s Bruno ‘brunovolks’ Volkmann but now his time is finally here – for the first time in his prolific online career, Volkmann is the #1-ranked online poker player in the world.

For the better part of a year, Volkmann has maintained a spot in the top 10, putting up big scores week-in and week-out. He had been consistently working his way to try and breakthrough, reaching as high as #2 in the world, but previously unable to take the top spot. That all changed this week as Volkmann (11,509 leaderboard points), jumped two spots, from #3 to grab the #1 position for the very first time.

Volkmann picked up three qualifying scores this week which put him over the top. The first on October 25 in a victory in a $315 Sunday Bounty on GGPoker in which he took home $10,084 and, more importantly for his rankings, 350.71 points. Two days later, Volkmann was at the final table again of the GGPoker event, this time the $1,050 High Rollers Main Event where a fifth-place finish earned him another $11,217 and 149.89 points, just enough to vault him into first place. His final qualifier this week was in GGPoker’s Sunday Fifty $250 where a bronze finish helped him pad his lead with 179.06 points, good for $11,104.

All the little scores finally added up for Volkmann, but the backbone of his #1 run was built earlier in the year. Three important victories, spread throughout the year, proved to be important pieces to giving him a base to build on. It started with his May victory in the Super MILLION$ for a hefty $319,831 payday (the second-largest score of his career) and an impressive 954.59 points. In August he went big again, winning a WSOP High Roller on GGPoker for another $111,464 and 714.14. Finally, his PokerStars WCOOP victory in Event #63-H ($10,300 NLHE 8-Max PKO) for $119,620 and 784.22 points remains the important wins in his rise up the leaderboard.

Volkmann is a picture of consistency. Some players make large leaps in the ranking after binking a huge score, but for Volkmann it’s been his consistent result that has finally paid off.

While Volkmann will enjoy a stay at the top, how long his reign will be remains to be seen. He has a lead but the leaderboard points are now tight at the top with Daniel ‘SmilleThHero’ Smiljkovic (11,293 points) just 216 points behind.

But Smiljkovic also has some catching up to do. A look at his recent results will note a massive gap in online scores, something that doesn’t happen often for this online grinder but there’s a reason for his nearly one month absence on the online scene: he wasn’t playing online, he was playing live.

Smiljkovic was spotted at the 2021 World Series of Poker in Las Vegas putting in hours on the live felt. He’s racked up three small cashes but Smiljkovic, September’s Online Player of the Month, still has plenty of time left in the series – including the Main Event – to make a big score before he returns to his online grind.

The player Volkmann needs to watch out for right now is fellow Brazilian Pedro ‘pvigar’ Garagnani (11,226who has been skyrocketing up the rankings and currently sits at a career-high rank of #3 in the world.

Garagnani has been picking up huge chunks of leaderboard points all year long. His latest conquest was a win in the WPTDeepstacks High Roller on partypoker for $112,079 and 753.70 points on October 24. Two days later he took down the High Rollers Main Event on GGPoker for another $35,620 and 393.70 points. Unlike, Smiljkovic, Garagnani is full speed ahead with his online grind and is just another big win away from taking over the rankings for the first time himself.

For Yuri Dzivielevski, now a three-time former #1, he falls to fifth place after an incredible 32 weeks at the world’s top online pro. Of course, those following closely will know that this was completely expected due to the fact that Dzivielevski has been spending his entire autumn in Las Vegas playing live at the World Series of Poker. Still, falling just four spots is a testament to his online accomplishments.

Dzivielevski currently has seven cashes in the 2021 WSOP including a final table in the $1,500 Razz in which he finished in fourth place for $29,089.

Online Poker Rankings (Week of 11/2)

RANK NAMEPOINTS
1stBruno brunovolks Volkmann11,509
2ndDaniel SmilleThHero Smiljkovic11,293
3rdPedro pvigar Garagnani 11,226
4thJoao Naza114 Vieira11,208
5thYuri Yuri Martins Dzivielevski11,190
6thAlex Alexyo Theologis10,969
7thAnatoly nl_profit Filatov10,709
8thEnrico whatisL0v3 Camosci10,285
9thLucio Llima92 Lima10,192
10thRui RuiNF Ferreira9,729