The 2025 Flaghunter Leaderboard race has yielded a historic new milestone. Koen Roos, of the Netherlands, has set a new record for the most poker tournament cashes in the most countries in a single calendar year by making the money in 49 unique countries. Roos' achievement tops Dominick French's prior record of 48 in 2024.
If you're wondering what exactly the Flaghunter Leaderboard is, here's a quick overview. The Hendon Mob, an online database that tracks cashes and earnings in poker tournaments across the globe, compiles its dataset into a number of different leaderboards. The Flaghunter Leaderboard keeps tabs on the number of unique countries that any given player has cashed a poker tournament in. With an overall tally and a yearly tally, the Flaghunter Leaderboard has captured the interest of poker players and spawned more than one travel-based poker challenge.
While French retains the top spot on the all-time Flaghunter Leaderboard with a grand total of 72 countries cashed in, Roos has outdone the Canadian when it comes to racking up new-country cashes in a calendar year.
Malta, France, and Cote d'Ivoire push Roos to new heights
In November, Roos added three flags to his Flaghunter resume with cashes in Malta, France, and Cote 'dIvoire. With a little less than two months remaining in the year, there's still plenty of time for Roos to cross the 50-country mark and extend his record further – while at the same time inching closer to French's all-time tally of 72.
Roos may have enough time on his side, but with so many cashes in so many countries comes the added difficulty of finding a poker tournament to play in a country he hasn't already added to his resume. Then, once he's found the event and made the trek, he still has to make the money – and that, as all poker players know, is no guarantee.
