It’s only the second week of the year but the high-stakes tables are already buzzing again.

A vast number of players are competing for big pots and some new faces are among them.

“EireAbu” has had the best start into the new year but for Scandinavian stars Viktor Blom and Ola Amundsgard it was a really tough week.

The action in 2015 has also moved to PokerStars.

Shades of 2012 with EireAbu

Online high roller EireAbu had a great 2012.

He was playing an incredible number of hands at $50/$100 PLO and made $3.5 million before he moved up to $200/$400 where he found his master in Gus Hansen.

He quit the nosebleeds with about $2m profit and stayed away for over two years.

Now he’s made a comeback in the Champions League of online poker. Over the last couple weeks of 2014 EireAbu won almost $1m and it looks like he’s carrying his hot run into the new year.

In the last seven days alone he generated $600k of profit. The money came mainly from Norwegian player Ola Amundsgard.

Interestingly, at the same time, the 6-max PLO ring games have also come back to life.

In 2014 most of the action was in 2-7 Triple Draw, Omaha Fixed Limit Hi-Lo (FL08) and in the Mixed Games but last week the PLO tables were highly frequented, too.

Notably a lot of the players moved from Full Tilt to PokerStars, as we can clearly see in the statistics.

Newbie RugDoctor takes on Isildur

He’s not necessarily a “newbie” per se, but until now he hasn’t been known to dabble much in online cash games.

A “new” account named “RugDoctor” showed up on the tables, which is the former account of former PokerStars team pro and 2004 WSOP main event runner-up David Williams.

Williams owns a WSOP bracelet, a WPT ring and a WCOOP title but he’s been known as a tournament player only.

If it is him, however, he’s made a pretty successful transition in 2015 to the online high-stakes cash games. Either way it must have been quite a surprise for Viktor Blom when RugDoctor suddenly turned up at his $1k/$2 Triple Draw tables.

The meeting turned out to be rather painful for the Swede. RugDoctor took more than $300k from Blom – who plays as Isildur1 on PS, too – and made him the loser of the week.

On the upper end of the scale RugDoctor finished the week as the second-biggest winner

Biggest Pot of the Week

Neither Blom or RugDoctor were involved in the biggest hand of the week, though, but the week’s top player EireAbu was.

He played heads-up PLO against another unknown player named d2themfi. The blinds were $200/$400.

The players took it slow before the flop. EireAbu raised to $1,360 and d2themfi just called. The flop came:

A check from d2themfi was answered by EireAbu’s bet of $800 and d2themfi made the call. As it turned out that was the perfect amount to keep d2themfi in the hand and set the trap. The turn was the

d2themfi checked again but when EireAbu bet $3,600 he raised it up to $12k. EireAbu called. On the river

d2themfi moved his last $24k over the line and EireAbu needed no time to make the call. The showdown shows why.

EireAbu:        

d2themfi:        

EireAbu had hit trips on the flop and a full house on the turn. His opponent d2themfi fell into the trap and $83k went into the bankroll.

Biggest Winners of the Week

• EireAbu (PS): $+616,927
• David RugDoctor Williams(PS), $+317,463
• Alexander joiso Kostritsyn (PS):$+234,849
• Ben Sauce123 Sulsky (PS): $+154,624
• SanIker: $+140,563

Biggest Losers of the Week

• Viktor Isildur1 Blom (PS): $-410,665
• Ola Odd_Oddsen Amundsgard (PS): $-208,990
• Sebastian taktloss47 Ruthenberg (PS): $-204,260
• Phil Polarizing Ivey: $-167,853
• WRUUUM (PS): $-151,993

Biggest Winners in 2015

• EireAbu (PS): $+445,237
• RugDoctor (PS): $+317,463
• trueteller (PS): $+251,023
• Ben Sauce123 Sulsky (PS): $+163,778
• Alexander joiso Kostritsyn (PS): $+142,134

Biggest Losers in 2015

• Viktor Isildur1 Blom (PS): $-410,665
• Ola Odd_Oddsen Amundsgard (PS): $-208,990
• Sebastian taktloss47 Ruthenberg (PS): $-204,260
• Phil Polarizing Ivey: $-167,853
• WRUUUM (PS): $-151,993