Sweden's Christian "eisenhower1" Jeppsson Wins the 2015 Yearly PocketFives Leaderboard
Sweden's Christian "eisenhower1" Jeppsson, who was just named Swedish Poker Player of the Year, capped off an amazing year on the online poker felt by winning the 2015 Yearly PocketFives Leaderboard (PLB) in a battle that was down to the wire against Russia's Artem "veeea" Vezhenkov, who finished in second place.
According to PocketFives, Jeppsson accumulated 17,060 PLB points on the leaderboard, which awards the top online tournament performer of the year. This proved to be just 126 points better than that of Vezhenkov's 16,932 PLB points. With two weeks to go before the end of the year, many in the poker world felt it was likely to be a close battle at the end with Vekhenkov holding a slim six-point lead going into the stretch run.
Jeppsson, who is the proud owner of almost $8 million in online tournament cashes was propelled to the 2015 Yearly PLB title with the help of his two largest cashes of his career. In May 2015, the Swede won $294,950 after finishing in sixth place in the Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) Main Event on PokerStars. He followed this up in Sept. 2015 when he won $105,943 after finishing on top of a three-way deal in the World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) Event #61 on PokerStars.
Vezhenkov also recorded his biggest win in his poker career when he recorded an outright win in the Sunday Million on PokerStars for a huge $183,675 payday.
Chile's Nicolas "PokerKaiser" Fierro finished in third place on the 2015 Yearly PLB with 16,796 points. Unlike Jeppsson and Vezhenkov, Fierro was near the top of the leaderboard thanks to many smaller cashes. In fact, his biggest cash of the year, which was a win in the $100,000 Mega Deep on 888poker in April for $35,658, didn't crack into the top 20 largest online cashes of his lifetime.
Although not counted in the Yearly PLB, Fierro wrapped up a huge year on the live felts by winning $620,000 in December when according to The Hendon Mob he shipped the Gran Final Millonaria Enjoy Conrad at the Conrad Punta del Este Resort & Casino in Uruguay.
Also in the top five on the Yearly PLB were Brazil's Joao "joaomathias" Mathias Baumgarten in fourth place with 16,350 PLB points and Sweden's Emil "Smeckten" Olsson in fifth place with 15,356 PLB points.
Here is a complete look at the top five on the 2015 PocketFives Yearly Online Leaderboard:
| Place | Player | Country | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Christian "eisenhower1" Jeppsson | Sweden | 17,060.64 |
| 2 | Artem "veeea" Vezhenkov | Russia | 16,932.28 |
| 3 | Nicolas "PokerKaiser" Fierro | Chile | 16,795.54 |
| 4 | Joao "joaomathias" Mathias Baumgarten | Brazil | 16,349.64 |
| 5 | Emil "Smeckten" Olsson | Sweden | 15,356.06 |
With the PocketFives Yearly PLB title, Jeppsson joins a very exclusive list of poker players that have held this honor since the award began in 2007. Others to win the Yearly PLB title in previous years included the United Kingdom's Rick "TheClaimeer" Trigg (2014), Calvin "cal42688" Anderson (2013), Canada's Matt "ch0ppy" Kay (2012) and Griffin "Flush_Entity" Benger (2011), United States' Chris "Gettin Daize" Oliver (2010), UK's Chris "moorman1" Moorman (2008-09), and USA's Scott "SCTrojans" Freeman (2007).
While the Yearly PLB awards the top performer of the year, PocketFives also ranks each week the top players in its Worldwide Rankings based off a different formula. Not surprisingly, Jeppsson and Vezhenkov have been number one and two in the rankings for weeks on end with the former remarkably sitting as the top dog for 15 straight weeks.
Olsson was one of the bigger changes in the rankings shooting up to third place. Just behind him are the Netherland's Steven "SvZff" van Zadelhoff in fourth place and Belarus's "Legenden" in fifth place.
With three of the next five spots in the Worldwide Rankings belonging to Swedish players, the Scandinavian country represents exactly half of the top 10.
Here is a look at the top ten in the PocketFives Worldwide Online Poker Rankings:
| Place | Player | Country | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Christian "eisenhower1" Jeppsson | Sweden | 7,348.53 |
| 2 | Artem "veeea" Vezhenkov | Russia | 7,037.61 |
| 3 | Emil "Smeckten" Olsson | Sweden | 6,836.66 |
| 4 | Steven "SvZff" van Zadelhoff | Malta | 6,740.83 |
| 5 | Legenden | Belarus | 6,561.09 |
| 6 | C Darwin2 | Sweden | 6,496.20 |
| 7 | Anton "AnteSvante" Wigg | Sweden | 6,384.21 |
| 8 | Simon "IgorK" Rønnow Pedersen | Denmark | 6,292.82 |
| 9 | lena900 | Sweden | 6,236.81 |
| 10 | Joel "jbrown8777" Brown | Canada | 6,143.55 |
Special thanks to PocketFives.com for information used in this article.
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