Since the World Series of Poker Circuit’s inception back in 2005, at least one player during each season seems to have dominated the eight-month schedule of events – distancing himself from the thousands of other players who participate regularly.

In previous years, Mark "Pegasus" Smith, Doug "Rico" Carli, and Dwight Pilgrim have each distinguished themselves as domineering players for their respective seasons. This past year that honor went to Michael Rosenbach.

The 29-year-old poker pro originally from New Jersey and now residing in Santa Rosa, Calif., is on the roll of a lifetime.

Last week in Los Angeles, he won his third WSOP Circuit gold ring in less than two months.

At the rate he’s winning tournaments, Rosenbach will soon have every finger and toe covered in gold.

Rosenbach collected $22,035 in prize money for his most recent win, which took place at the Bicycle Casino in Bell Gardens.

He was also presented with yet another coveted gold ring, the top prize awarded to all WSOP Circuit event winners.

With this victory, Rosenbach’s tournament record this year includes three wins and a fifth-place showing. He is qualified for the National Championship by virtue of his designation as "Best All Around Player" at Lake Tahoe.

Indeed, some tournament wins are a fluke, and some tournament winners are merely a flash in the pan. But there’s little doubt Rosenbach is going places.

There appears to be more gold rings and perhaps even gold bracelets in his very bright poker future.

Other winners in the Circuit game at Bicycle Casino included:

2nd Place – Danny Illingworth, from San Diego. He finished sixth in the $5,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em event back in 2009.

3rd Place – Dean Buchanan, 22, from Kirkland, Wash., who served a two-year tour in Iraq. This was his first cash ever in a WSOP-related event.

4th Place – Ryan Jones, a 25-year-old student from Torrance, Calif. Some of his results in major poker tournaments include three WSOP cashes and several other in-the-money finishes.

5th Place – Steve Richhart, who works in sales and plays poker part-time. He has several previous cashes in major tournaments played elsewhere. He finished in-the-money for the first time in a WSOP-related event with this performance.

6-handed, no limit

Six-handed no-limit hold’em (as a live tournament) first debuted at the 2005 World Series of Poker, in Las Vegas. It came about due to growing popularity as an online poker game. In fact, six-handed hold’em games became so popular that by 2000 it rivaled full-ring games in overall number at the biggest online sites.

Nevertheless, six-handed live tournaments remain rare in casinos, due to more dealers and tables being required to run them, which in turn accommodates fewer tournament players.

The WSOP and WSOP Circuit remain as two of the few places where six-handed poker tournaments are part of the regular schedule.

Six-handed no-limit hold’em is also markedly different from the conventional full table game. Since blinds race around the table much faster (players are posting blinds 2/6 rather than 2/9 of the time), the action tends to be more aggressive.

In fact, good short-handed players enjoy clear advantages over players who are more accustomed to full-table games with nine players.