Player Update: Patrik Antonius

So almost half of 2009 is behind us – who is the king of the online cash games so far?

Well the answer is absolutely and unequivocally Patrik Antonius. ‘God’ has been putting in some serious volume this year – only Tom Dwan, Gus Hansen and Sami ‘LarsLuzak’ Kelopuro have put in more hands* - and when you are turning over these kind of profit margins, it’s easy to see why. From January to May the Finn has made over $5.4million in the Full Tilt games – when you consider that last year’s biggest winner, Phil Ivey, made $7.3million in 12 months, and you see that ‘PA’ could easily be on to break the record for biggest online winnings in a calendar year. The vast majority of this has come in the $500/$1,000 ‘Mixed HA’ Games – a rotation of Pot Limit Hold ‘Em and Pot Limit Omaha – against the best players in the world, such as Dwan, Hansen, Kelopuro, Ilari ‘Ziigmund’ Sahamies and Phil ‘OMGClayAiken’ Galfond.

And what of the durrrr challenge? Ivey was quoted as saying the stakes were so high for this 4-table, $200/$400 PLO match that someone could easily go broke. Well it’s not looking like being Antonius at present – despite having almost no 4-tabling experience before the challenge, he is up over $420,000 after just over 14,000 of the 50,000 hands have been completed. And this is against arguably the finest player the internet has ever produced – no small feat.

While making more money online than even most of the best internet pros could ever dream of seeing, Antonius has also been on our screens for Season 5 of High Stakes Poker and yet again he doesn’t disappoint. Surely his highlight of the series was this incredible $287,000 pot against Phil Laak which left most of the other players, and commentator Gabe Kaplan, drooling:



In a way it is a shame that the cash game action is so juicy during the World Series because it will probably deprive us of many Patrik Antonius sightings at the WSOP – unless he goes deep in the $40,000 NLH, that is. The Finn is in absolutely unstoppable form right now and it will be interesting to see if anyone can halt his assault on becoming the most profitable online player of the year. With his nearest rivals yet to pass the $3million mark, it’s clear they have a long way to go.





*71,499 hands as of 22nd May 2009