This week Russian high-stakes tournament pro Arsenii ‘hellohellohello’ Malinov catapulted back into the Online Poker Rankings top 10 after a string of high profile cashes helped him rise 26 spots to land at #9 in the world.

This is by no means Malinov’s first trip into the top 10. In 2018, he was on the verge of becoming the #1 ranked player in the world, however that entire year was dominated by Sweden’s ‘C Darwin2’ and ‘Lena900’. Although he spent multiple weeks at #2, the Russian was just unable to find a path to the top spot.

Now Malinov returns as the #1-ranked player in Russia, surpassing Anatoly ‘nl_profit’ Filatov, who, this week, is currently ranked #10 in the world. He accomplished this, in part, by making deep runs in marquee tournament and consistently putting together PLB-qualifying scores in small timeframes.

He built a bed of PLB points in early January, on January 10 specifically, that included a fifth place finish in the PokerStars Blowout Series Event #53-H ($2,100 NLHE) for $28,089 and 244.38 points. The same day he finished in seventh place in Blowout Series Event #54-H ($10,300 NLHE) for another $56,424 and 339.40 points. He wrapped the day with another deep run in a Blowout Series event and it looked like it was just a matter of time that he closed one out.

One week later, Malinov (playing under his ‘hello_totti’ screenname) did just that. While not an official Blowout Series title, he took down the $5,200 NLHE Blowout Series Side Event for a $219,546 payday and a massive 1,060.66 PLB point score. The victory was the third-largest of his over 10-year online poker career and was critical to helping him soar back up the rankings.

Malinov has also found recent success in the GGPoker Super MILLION$ tournament. He cashed in the January 26 and February 2 events for a total of nearly $44,000 and just this week he made the final table where he finished in fifth place for another $144,393.

It’s likely that he will see another bump next week when his back-to-back victories on February 16 in the PokerStars High Roller Club are included in the rankings.

Malinov is rapidly approaching $13 million in career earnings and currently sits at #17 on the Online Poker All-Time Money List. He’ll need to keep producing though if he wants to remain #1 in Russia as he only has a 4 PLB point lead over Filatov.

Online Poker Rankings Notes This Week

• What a difference a week makes for former #1-ranked Yuri ‘Yuri Martins’ Dzivieleski. He jumped up four spots from #7 to #3 after his runner-up finish in ACR’s Venom Main Event earned him $849,150 and a massive 2,026.53 PLB point jump. The four-figure PLB point score put him less than 500 points behind Ivan ‘zufo16’ Zufic, who has been in the #2 spot for the better part of two months.

• Speaking of the ACR Venom Main Event, another Brazilian, ‘Ramonkrop’, won the whole thing for a career-high score of $1,113,330. The incredible 3,071.64 PLB points they received for defeating the 3,774-entry field launched him 111 places in the rankings from #137 to #26, by far the largest leap of the week.

• UK-based grinder ‘JaegsPL’ broke into the Top 100 this week, hitting a career-high ranking of #72 in the world thanks to his sixth-place finish in the GGPoker Global MILLION$ for $26,728. ‘JaegsPL’ currently sits as the #6-ranked player in the United Kingdom.

Worldwide Online Poker Rankings