Posts Tagged ‘Polarizing online poker’

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.

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.