Posts Tagged ‘Patrik Antonius’

Dan Cates up $10.2m, Phil Ivey down $5.1m

Friday, August 29th, 2014

Oh what a difference a couple of years can make in high stakes online poker. Coming into the relaunched Full Tilt Poker, Phil Ivey was the game’s biggest winner with $19.2 million in online profits. However, he’s since taken a big tumble over the nearly-two years since Full Tilt reopened.

Switching to the name “Polarizing,” Ivey is now down $5.1 million. This still leaves him with about $14.1 million in career online poker winnings. And we certainly wouldn’t expect him to be in money trouble, given his multiple business endeavors and baccarat edge-sorting profits. Still, it’s strange to see the man whom many call the “world’s greatest all-around poker player” struggle so badly.

On the other end of the spectrum is Dan “jungleman12” Cates, who is dominating the cyber felt this year. Cates had the prime of his poker career interrupted by Black Friday, as he’d earned $6.8 million in just a year before April 15th, 2011. Since resuming his high stakes career at Full Tilt, Cates hasn’t experienced any drop-off, and his HighStakesDB graph just keeps going up. At the time of this writing, Jungleman has made over $2.83 million in 2014, which leads everybody entering September.

Cates also ranks third all-time with $10.23 million. He only trails Ivey and Patrik Antonius – the latter of whom is another interesting story. Like Cates, Antonius is crushing players this year and has earned $1.83 million. Overall, the Finn has collected $5.95 million in career profits through his “Finddagrind” name. Combine this with $11.2 million from his self-titled name and Antonius has over $17.1 million in career winnings.

Of course, the high stakes online poker world is a fickle place. So it’ll be interesting to see if Cates and Antonius continue dominating the big games at Full Tilt. But at this point, we have little reason to doubt their skills.

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Is Patrik Antonius Online Poker’s Biggest Winner?

Thursday, April 24th, 2014

Thanks to their numerous TV and online poker battles, Phil Ivey and Patrik Antonius are two players whose careers are closely tied together. But these high stakes pros couldn’t be any further apart these days when considering their online results.

Antonius is coming off a week where he made nearly $1 million under his ‘FinddaGrind’ name. Since Full Tilt relaunched back in November of 2012, Antonius has earned $2.65 million in profits. Not bad for playing in a continually tougher high stakes world!

Ivey’s fortunes haven’t been quite as good. Maybe it’s the pressure of facing two baccarat “edge sorting” lawsuits, but Ivey has had the worst results of his career. He lost over $755k during the Easter weekend and is down $4.7 million on his ‘Polarizing’ account – the one he’s been using ever since Full Tilt relaunched.

Given the two different directions that these stars are headed, we wonder if Antonius has now become online poker’s biggest winner. After accumulating $19.2 million on the old Full Tilt, Ivey was far and away the biggest winner. However, that could very well have changed now, based on data from HighStakesDB:

Patrik Antonius
Patrik Antonius screen name: +$11.32 million
FinddaGrind screen name: +$4.99 million
Total = $15.31 million in profits

Phil Ivey
Phil Ivey screen name: +$19.24 million
Polarizing screen name: -$4.7 million
Total = $14.54 million in profits

Okay, so based on these numbers, Antonius is definitely online poker’s biggest winner. But here’s the curveball: both players are also rumored to have names on PokerStars too. As HSDB writes, Ivey “almost certainly plays under ‘RaiseOnce'” while Antonius “almost certainly plays under ‘Fake Love888.'”

Keep in mind that these names have never been 100% verified by either player. But if these are indeed Ivey and Antonius’ names on PokerStars, here’s how the lifetime profits would shake out:

Antonius
Known winnings: +$15.31 million
Rumored Fake Love888 name: -$1.4 million
New total = $13.91 in profits

Ivey
Known winnings: +$14.54 million
Rumored RaiseOnce name: -$47.88k
New total = $14.49 million in profits

So as you can see, the matter of who’s the most profitable player in online poker history depends on rumors and speculation. But one thing’s for sure: if everything keeps going like it is, Antonius will undoubtedly become the internet game’s biggest winner.

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ISPT Wembley Poker Tournament is a Huge Disappointment

Saturday, June 8th, 2013

Last year, International Stadiums Poker Tour made huge waves by announcing that they wanted to hold the biggest tourney ever at Wembley Stadium. Many players scoffed when ISPT claimed that they would offer a €20 million prize pool, with first place collecting €10 million of this amount. What seemed even more unrealistic was how ISPT predicted their tournament would attract 30,000 grinders, making it the largest poker event ever.

In the end, these predictions fell far short of reality. ISPT Wembley attracted 761 players and offered a €2,643,985 prize pool. Sure this is very good for a normal tournament, but it was expected to be a tourney of historic proportions.

One of the biggest debacles arising from ISPT Wembley was the original €6,000 buy-in. For a tournament that was supposed to attract 30,000 runners, this amount was far too high. And it was only until later that organizers realized this and scrambled to change the buy-in to €3,000. But even cutting the entry fee in half wasn’t enough to attract a sizable number of players.

It’s also worth mentioning that ISPT Wembley guaranteed €1 million to the winner – an amount which consumed nearly 40% of the total prize pool. By the time the six-player final table was formed, those involved merely decided to divvy the money up and leave an extra €200,000 for the winner. This champion turned out to be Poland’s Jakub Michalak, who earned €436,000 thanks to the extra €200k winner’s payout.

From a sheer numbers vs. expectations perspective, ISPT Wembley has to be considered one of the more disappointing poker tournaments in history. However, those who participated did say that Wembley Stadium offered a tournament atmosphere unlike anything they’d ever seen. Michael ‘The Grinder’ Mizrachi even dubbed it the most “‘beautiful tournament in the world.”

But atmosphere aside, ISPT suffered a major financial hit with this event. And it’s questionable as to whether they’ll stage another tournament, or simply fade away like the disgraced Epic Poker League.

ISPT Wembley Final Table Results
1) Jakub Michalak, €436,000
2) Xavier El Fassy, €204,000
3) Nick Hicks, €254,000
4) Pete Linton, €375,000
5) Alban Juen, €290,000
6) Gwendoline Janot, €243,000

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Patrik Antonius back at Full Tilt Poker

Monday, January 21st, 2013

Prior to Black Friday (April 15th, 2011), Full Tilt Poker was THE destination for online high stakes poker action. Many of the game’s most notable players like Gus Hansen, Phil Ivey and Viktor Blom were grinding at the Full Tilt nosebleeds on a regular basis. However, from the spring of 2011 until FTP’s relaunch on November 6th, 2012, these games were forced to disappear.

Luckily, The Rational Group saved Full Tilt, and the high stakes games have quickly returned to prominence. Now grinders like Ben Sulsky, Phil Galfond, Blom and Ivey are back and playing again. And now you can add Patrik Antonius to this list as well since he just started playing online high stakes poker games again last week.

Slow Start

During his first session back from a lengthy hiatus, Antonius didn’t exactly do too well. The Finn lost $300,000 to a variety of opponents throughout the day. After taking some time to regroup, Antonius came back and won $485,000 in his next session – giving him a $185,000 net profit.

Things have gotten a little rougher since that great session because, at the moment, Patrik is showing a loss of $190,000 since coming back to Full Tilt. If history is any indication though, it shouldn’t be long before we see a comeback from him.

Place in History

As some poker players know, Phil Ivey is the top earner in online poker history with over $18.5 million in total profits. And Antonius actually checks in behind him with the second most internet poker profits at $11.65 million.

He was initially at $11.84 million, but the recent losses dropped his bankroll down a notch. This being said, it’ll be interesting to see if Patrik Antonius can get back to his winning ways and continue improving upon the $11.65m mark.

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Matt Marafioti accused of Poker Cheating Conspiracy

Tuesday, August 7th, 2012

With over $2 million in live poker tournament winnings and an impressive online poker resume, Matt Marafioti is widely considered one of the better pro players out there. However, the Canadian’s name has been dragged through the mud over the past couple of days after an alleged Skype conversation between him and another player was leaked on the TwoPlusTwo forums.

The 2p2 thread begins with a posted Skype conversation (sent to poster via email) between Marafioti and a Swedish online poker player named Samar Rahman. This already leads people to jump to conclusions because Rahman has been accused of cheating players such as Patrik Antonius in the past through elaborately-placed computer viruses. But things get worse when the conversation alludes to hacking into other players’ accounts so Marafioti and Rahman can see opponents’ hole cards.

Seeing as how it’s possible to manipulate a Skype conversation before posting it to the internet, it’s tough to verify 100% accuracy in this matter. However, most people in the TwoPlusTwo thread feel Marafioti and Rahman’s conversation about cheating other players follows a realistic flow for an IM conversation.

Perhaps more damning are the character issues here because both Marafioti and Rahman are pretty questionable people. Marafioti has gained quite a bit of attention for his melodramatic twitter posts and incessant cursing while Rahman is rumored to be a skilled computer hacker – as mentioned before.

Of course, none of this is evidence that these two online poker pros definitely conspired to cheat people. However, it is worth mentioning that the TwoPlusTwo thread has been kept up, which means they either feel there is some validity behind the accusations or – at the very least – they believe the topic is worthy of discussion.

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Justin Bonomo wins Monte Carlo Super High Roller and €1.64m

Thursday, April 26th, 2012

Justin Bonomo captured the biggest victory of his already-illustrious poker career after winning the 2012 Monte Carlo Super High Roller along with €1,640,000 ($2,165,217). It’s also worth mentioning that this huge cash vaulted Bonomo to the top of the 2012 money list. It wasn’t easy for “ZeeJustin” to pull all of this off though since he had to battle through a pro-heavy event.

Some of the pros involved included Jonathan Duhamel, Daniel Negreanu, Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, Phil Ivey and Patrik Antonius. Several of these players managed to make it into the money, but the tournament finale came down to Bonomo and Tobias Reinkemeier.

And despite the fact that Bonomo held a 6-1 chip advantage, Reinkemeier managed to keep things interesting by prolonging the seemingly obvious result. However, ZeeJustin was able to finally finish off the German while holding A-Q(o) against Reinkemeier’s pocket 4’s. Bonomo paired his ace on the board to take the hand along with the win.

With the EPT Monte Carlo Super High Roller title on his resume, Justin Bonomo has now earned $5,067,854 just in live tournaments alone. This doesn’t even include all of the money he’s made in online poker tournaments, online cash games, and live tourneys.

Some of his career highlights include finishing second in a 2008 WSOP $5k NLHE tournament ($230,159), winning a WSOP Circuit Caesars Palace event ($227,692), and finishing second in a 2011 WSOP $2,500 2-7 Triple Draw tournament ($117,305).

Going back to the EPT Monte Carlo Super High Roller, here’s a look at some of the other players who cashed in the event, including the pros we discussed before:

1st – Justin Bonomo, €1.64 million
2nd – Tobias Reinkemeier, €1.06 million
3rd – Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, €621,000
4th – Patrik Antonius, €443,000
5th – Masa Kagawa, €345,500
6th – Daniel Negreanu, €310,000

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WSOP $1 Million Buy-in to break Records

Friday, April 13th, 2012

What began as a vision several months ago has become reality since the WSOP $1 million buy-in tournament is definitely going to happen from July1st-3rd. Dubbed “The Big One for One Drop,” this tourney already has 30 players confirmed with some of the biggest names in poker having made a commitment.

But before we get into the confirmed players, it’s worth mentioning that this tournament is already guaranteed to set two records. First off, the WSOP $1 million buy-in tournament will feature the biggest buy-in ever; the previously largest tourney was the $250k Aussie Millions High Roller.

As for the second record, the 30 confirmed players and interesting prize pool distribution will see the winner walk away with almost $12.3 million of the prize pool. Assuming this happens as planned, it would easily beat the $12 million that Jamie Gold received for winning the 2006 WSOP Main Event.

With such a massive prize involved, it’s no wonder why the top names in poker will be entering this event. Some of those confirmed include Gus Hansen, Patrik Antonius, Erik Seidel, Daniel Negreanu, Johnny Chan, Tom Dwan, Tony G, Dan Shak, Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier and Jonathan Duhamel.

In addition to this stellar lineup of players, there will also be some prominent businessmen joining the tourney. These guys include Guy Laliberté, Bobby Baldwin (former player too), Phil Ruffin, Andy Beal, Sean O’Donnell, Richard Yong, Paul Phua and Arnaud Mimran.

The Big One for One Drop will see 10% of the buy-ins go towards Laliberté’s One Drop foundation, while a little under $27 million is available for the actual tourney. We still have plenty of time before July 1st, so both the number of participants and prize money could grow before the tournament starts. But even if it stays the same, we’re still in for quite a special event come WSOP time!

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Phil Ivey is Back – Wins Aussie Millions $250k

Sunday, January 29th, 2012

Along with the rest of the Full Tilt Poker crew, Phil Ivey hasn’t exactly been one of the most popular figures in poker over the past eight or so months. And he probably won’t be popular again until former Full Tilt players get their money back. Even still, Ivey wasn’t letting any of this stop him from showing up to the 2012 Aussie Millions.

The man who people have been touting as the best all-around poker player in the world for years not only showed up, but he made a huge impression after winning the Aussie Millions $250k Super High Roller event along with $2 million AUD. And you’d have to argue that this is the biggest poker tournament win of his career.

Now this is saying a lot for a guy who’s won a WPT title and eight WSOP bracelets. But judging from both a financial and adversity perspective, this is the most impressive win by Ivey. As for the adversity, he’s still dealing with a lot of the pressure from the Full Tilt fallout after Black Friday. In regards to the financial side of things, his largest poker tournament cash prior to this was a 2008 LA Poker Classic title ($1.6 million); he also finished seventh place in the 2009 WSOP Main Event ($1.4 million).

Moving along, this win could be construed as somewhat legendary since the final three players involved Ivey, Gus Hansen and Patrik Antonius. The latter is who Ivey dueled heads-up to complete the huge victory. One more point worth making here is that Ivey moved into second place on the all-time poker tournament winnings list with the win ($15.9 million).

Now does all of this mean we’re supposed to hail Phil Ivey and pretend like he had absolutely no involvement at all in the Full Tilt Poker mess? Not exactly, but we can at least respect his unparalleled poker abilities. Furthermore, we should also recognize that he’s not the primary villain in the FTP scandal by any means.

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Macau Poker Pot Reportedly hits $13.8 Million

Wednesday, November 30th, 2011

In case you haven’t heard yet, there are some enormous cash games going on in Macau right now. And the word enormous might even be an understatement after reports are coming out that one of the cash game pots was worth a reported $14 million!

APT owner Tom Hall has been the biggest source of rumors about the $14 million pot, which was won by an unknown player who was reportedly down over $12.6 million; Hall wrote the following about the big play:

Biggest hand I ever saw and arguably the craziest was a guy betting HK$28m (US$3.6) on the river into a HK$51m (US$6.55) pot with a gutshot straight draw against what turned out to be top set. He was down over HK$100m (US$12.8) at the time and hit it.

When you add up all of the money that Hall described, this equals around $13.75 million (or $13.8m just to round off). You can read about all of Tom Hall’s reports on the Macau high stakes poker games in this thread.

The action has been pretty intense all throughout the big games at Macau with Johnny Chan reportedly winning $1.41 million. In addition to this, Tom Dwan lost $2.6 million in one day, but came back to win $1.7m overall, and Andrew Robl was up $2 million – only to drop back down to even.

Apparently the games are pretty exclusive because Patrik Antonius was denied a seat at the big table. 2010 WSOPE Main Event champion James Bord tried to get him into the game, but Canadian billionaire Guy Laliberte refused because he thinks that Antonius is too nitty. Hall wrote about this by typing:

Confirmed that Patrik Antonius was not allowed into the game, James Bord (who was playing) tried to get him in but Guy Laliberte insisted no WAY. Antonius played ~US$640/US$1280 PLO instead with Andrew “good2cu” Robl and a few others.

Apparently, the rich businessmen who play in this game want lots of action, and people who bring their own money – as opposed to being staked.

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Ben Lamb’s Excellent WSOP continues in Main Event

Thursday, July 14th, 2011

Ben Lamb has a lot of live poker tournament cashes, which includes a 14th place finish in the 2009 WSOP Main Event. Even still, nobody remembers who finished 14th in a Main Event – unless it’s the last woman standing of course – and Lamb was largely unheralded going into the 2011 WSOP. But this has changed in a huge way, including the fact that he now leads the 2011 Main Event after two days of play.

Now as we all know, the odds are against Lamb holding onto this top spot and winning the $8.71 million top prize. However, it’s a mute point if he fades away and doesn’t even grab a significant cash here.

After all, the Tulsa, Oklahoma native kicked things off by finishing second in a $3k Pot-Limit Omaha event, which earned him $259,918. Later on, Lamb would put himself on the map in a big way by winning the $10,000 Pot Limit Omaha Championship ($814,436).

Want some more impressive results? How about when Lamb finished 12th in the Limit Hold’em 6-handed Championship and 8th in the $50,000 Players Championship. When you tally up all of Lamb’s winnings from the 2011 WSOP, he has over $1.3 million among his four cashes. And he has an excellent chance to add even more money since he’s doing so well in terms of chips after two days.

Moving away from Lamb for a moment, it’s also worth mentioning that Patrik Antonius is also going strong after the first two days. The Finn doesn’t play a whole lot of live poker anymore, but perhaps he’s turning over a new leaf since Full Tilt Poker still isn’t running real money games at the moment. It would be nice to see a big name like him make a deep run in the tournament.

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