For those players who contest $100,000 or more pots nearly everyday their action has been fairly standard this week. There are a few new names appearing at the top level of the game wanting to play poker online against the likes of durrrr and Ziigmund with varying results. Here is the story of the latest round of high stakes poker action. If you want to learn poker then railing these guys in action is a must for your poker studies. I am dreading the day poker rooms begin charging railbirds and hope it never happens!
Odonkor1 has been very active in the last few days. He is Joel Norqvist from Sweden who has been seen on the EPT and has appeared on Full Tilt willing to duke it out at the highest stakes with all of the big names and so far he has done very well, winning over $500,000 last week. There was speculation that his traits of playing very high, being a new player at the high stakes games and playing long sessions was very similar to another Swede, the infamous Isildur1. Are they the same person?
No-one knows whether they are one and the same, but there are striking similarities in their styles. Perhaps Viktor Blom was a decoy and Isildur1 is really Joel Norqvist? Now that would be a twist! If they are separate players then it is amazing that Martonas, Isildur1 and now Odonkor1 have torn up the high stakes poker scene and all three of these players are from Sweden, the new Mecca of young hotshot high stakes poker pros!
Sami Kelopuro has been around the high stakes scene for some time and is known as Larsluzak online. He has maintained a steady profit of around $500,000 this year which is very good but often has days of winning $100,000 and then losing a similar amount soon after. It is important for Larsluzak to start winning more consistently I think if he is to maintain his reputation as one of the best young players.
His results show profits as the highest stakes like $500/$1000 No Limit Texas Holdem Shorthanded play and ironically it is the lower limits where he seems to show the biggest losses. Is this Sami being outplayed or not taking the games as seriously? Sami does have a poker blog, but it is in Finnish, so I struggle to translate what he is saying, so perhaps he agrees with my assessments!
Tom “durrrr” Dwan’s peak earnings were at $9.9 million just before his big loss to Isildur1 in late 2009. He is currently showing a profit of $8 million so he is getting closer to his best earnings point. He seems to have put the 2009 loss behind him and is posting excellent scores each week and appears at the top of his game. Pokertableratings.com rate his play at the moment as 95 out of 100 so it is clear his stats support this belief that Tom is on top form. Since April 7th he has logged twelve online poker sessions and has profits of around $200,000 which is a steady win rate. Expect more of the same from durrrr in the coming months.
Gus Hansen was down as much as $1 million online according to pokertableratings but has been doing well of late and now shows a lifetime loss online of around $-300,000. Since April 7th Gus has logged a few sessions and is around $500,000 in profit. Hopefully this is a turning point for him online. He is known as super-aggressive but too willing to call off to river value bets. He has been known to have over 100 players waiting to play him online, which suggests his online reputation needs bolstering. With wins of $500,000 in two weeks, he may be on the way to achieving a better online poker image.
Look out for more high stakes poker reports in the near future.
By Malcolm Clarke