In a week where there were subtle shifts of position in the top 25, the return of one of South America’s most successful online tournament grinders highlights this week in the Online Poker Rankings.

In March of 2018, Uruguay’s Ramiro ‘ramiro’ Petrone finished as the runner-up in the PokerStars Turbo Series Main Event for a career-high score of $282,436. While that was a special result, as it remains his #1 biggest score, it was par for the course as to what was happening in his online poker career at the time.

Petrone had broken through to the ranks of the high-rollers and earned three six-figure scores that score including a partypoker POWERFEST title for $195,720 and a PokerStars WCOOP title for another $101,489. At the same time, the player formerly known as ‘rayastar’ was rocketing up the rankings, eventually breaking through into the elite ranks of the top five.

However, Petrone never made it to the top and sometime after his 2018 campaign, he disappeared from the rankings. Not because he stopped playing, but because he stopped tracking his results.

This week, ‘Ramiro’ returned to the rankings and after more than a year of being away, he debuted at #14 in the world thanks in part to some impressive recent scores. Playing under his real name on GGPoker, Petrone made a deep run in the May 18 edition of the $10K Super MILLION$, earning $197,112 for his third-place finish. It marked the third-largest score of his career, right behind his third-place finish in the January 19 edition of the same tournament, where he won $270,490.

One look at Petrone’s recent results shows that he’s only gotten stronger in 2021. He picked up a PokerStars Blowout Series title in January for $82,972, a partypoker POWERFEST title in April for $70,786, and three WSOP Circuit victories on GGPoker for more than $34,000.

Although Petrone hasn’t been putting in the same kind of volume he did back in 2018, Petrone is a threat to take a spot in the top 10 in the coming weeks and a player to keep an eye on in any tournament he registers for.

Volkmann’s Rankings Rise Continues

While it remains to be seen if Petrone will climb back into the top 10, Brazil’s Bruno ‘brunovolks’ Volkmann continues his rise in the rankings, reaching a new career-high of #3 this week.

Just one week ago, Volkmann chopped the GGPoker Super MILLION$ with Elio Fox, taking home an undisclosed six-figure sum. This week in the Super MILLION$ Volkmann returned to the final table where he finished as the runner-up to Anatoly Filatov, earning another $254,559 and 808.03 leaderboard points.

The result helped him swap places on the rankings with Joao Vieira, who takes a step back one spot to #4, and pushed Volkmann’s career earnings north of $11 million. Volkmann ended the week with 15,453 points, just 192 points behind #2-ranked Sami ‘LarsLuzak’ Kelopuro who also made a deep run in this week’s Super MILLION$, finishing in 13th for $28,026 and 262.83 points.

The Heat Index

Volkmann’s back-to-back Super MILLION$ final tables have lifted him to the top of the new PocketFives Heat Index, a ranking that charts the players who have been running the hottest over the past 28 days.

Every day that goes by, scores are added and subtracted, keeping the list current up-to-date taking into account a player’s running top five qualifying scores in seven-day blocks.

Take a look at the ever-changing PocketFives Heat Index and see who is the hottest online poker player on the planet on any given day.

Online Poker Rankings Notes This Week

• China’s #1-ranked player WeiRan ‘kevin.pu’ Pu picked up four qualifying scores this week including a victory in the WSOP Circuit Series on GGPoker for $23,359 and 370.24 points to climb 23 spots, the largest leap in the top 100 players this week.

• Two former top-10 players re-entered the top 100 this week. First, ‘cswilder’, who touched #5 back in 2012 rose two spots this week to #99. At the same time, Brazil’s Douglas ‘dowghsantos’ Ferreira Souza, who hit #8 back in 2013, jumped up six spots to land at #98.

• Speaking of former top-ranked pros, Niklas ‘lena900’ Astedt (41st), Simon ‘C Darwin2’ Mattsson (42nd), and Chris ‘moorman1’ Moorman (45th), three of the most popular former #1-ranked players, all find themselves ranked in the forties this week ahead of a huge summer of online grinding ahead.

Worldwide Online Poker Rankings