– General Introduction –
Dominik Nitsche is a German professional poker player. He was born on October 11th, 1990 in Minden, Germany.
He is a 4-time WSOP gold bracelet winner, the most for any player from Germany. The biggest out of his 4 bracelet wins was taking down the €111,111 High Roller for One Drop event at the 2017 WSOP Europe in Rozvadov for €3.487 million. Overall, he’s cashed for $18.660 million in live tournaments, which puts him in the top 5 on the German all time money list, and in the top 50 on the worldwide all time money list.
Online, he plays under the screen name “Bounatirou” on PokerStars and “JustLuck1337” on the now defunct site Full Tilt. On those two accounts, he’s amassed $7.5 million in online MTT cashes.
He is also the founder and owner of the DTO poker training app.
– Key Career Dates –
- 2006: He starts playing online poker at just age 16.
- 2012: He wins his first WSOP gold bracelet after finishing first in the $1,000 No Limit Hold’em event for $654,797.
- 2017: He wins his fourth WSOP gold bracelet after finishing first in the €111,111 High Roller for One Drop event at WSOP Europe for €3.487 million. That is the biggest single live tournament cash of his career to date.
- 2019: He finishes 5th in the $25,000 WCOOP No Limit Hold’em High Roller on PokerStars for $188,140. That is the biggest single online tournament cash of his career to date.
– Dominik Nitsche’s Career –
→ Beginnings ←
Nitsche talked about his earliest years on the I am High Stakes Poker interview series on Paul Phua’s YouTube channel.
In it, he said that as a very young kid, he wanted to be a professional footballer. However, he soon realized that he was nowhere near good enough for pro sports – but he was really good at maths. About how he found the game of poker, here’s what he had to say:
“I end up playing a lot of video games throughout my teenage years. And a couple of my video game friends, they said ‘you should try out this poker thing’.
I downloaded it, whatever [inaudible], Stars, and partypoker, played freerolls, ran up a bunch of money, and, yeah, that’s pretty much what happened.”
Nitsche did start very young, playing online underaged under his mother’s name, at age 16. In the interview, we also learn that tragedy also struck early in his life: when he was just 11 years old, he lost his father.
→ Live Tournaments ←
Nitsche has $18.657 million in live tournament earnings, according to his Hendon page. That sum is the product of cashes in 169 different live events over the course of 10 years. He’s currently number 4 on Germany’s all time money list, and is in the top 50 on the worldwide all time money list.
His first recorded result is from April 2009 – strangely, from an event played in Argentina. And it was a big one. He took down the $5,200 Main Event at the Latin American Poker Tour for $381,030. By that time, he was a successful online tournament pro.
In October 2009, he came in 2nd in the €9,000 High Roller at WPT Marrakech in Morocco for €82,034. He then went on to collect 5-6 figure scores from around the world, including countries like Cyprus, Brazil, France, Spain, Austria, and Australia – while only cashing in events in his home country of Germany twice. His next big break came at the 2012 WSOP, where he won his first bracelet for over half a million dollars.
Since then, he collected some additional giant live tourney scores.
In June 2016, he came in 2nd in a $50K Aria Super High Roller for $629,808. In March 2018, he finished 4th in the HK$2.1 million Super High Roller Bowl in Macau for $1.670 million. Only a month later, in April 2018, he took 4th place in the €10,300 Main Event at the partypoker MILLIONS Barcelona Grand Final for €800,000.
→ World Series of Poker ←
Dominik Nitsche has won 4 WSOP gold bracelets so far. That is the most among players from Germany.
He won his first bracelet in 2012. He took down the $1,000 No Limit Hold’em event for $654,797. At the 2014 WSOP, he brought home two more bracelets in one series. He finished first in the $10,000 WSOP National Championship NLHE event for $352,800; and in the $1,000 NLHE event again, this time for $335,659.
His last World Series victory to date is from the 2017 WSOP Europe in Rozvadov, Czech Republic. He took down the €111,111 High Roller for One Drop NLHE event for €3.487 million. He beat Andreas Eiler from Austria heads-up for the title. That is also Nitsche’s biggest single live tournament score to date.
At the 2018 WSOP Europe, back in Rozvadov, he delivered another major score. He finished 5th in the €100,000 King’s Super High Roller tournament for €574,466. He also has an ITM finish in the most famous poker tournament in the world, the $10,000 WSOP Main Event in Las Vegas. In 2017, he came in 195th out of 7,221 players and won $46,096.
Overall, Nitsche has cashed in 37 World Series events, for a total of $7.698 million combined.
→ Live Cash Games ←
Nitsche has always put his focus on tournaments in his career, both live and online. Therefore, it’s not surprising that he hasn’t appeared on any TV shows or live streams where he would play live cash in front of an audience.
→ Online Poker ←
As we wrote in our intro, Nitsche started his poker career by playing MTT’s online underaged under his mother’s name.
When he turned old enough, he registered on the now defunct poker site Full Tilt with the screen name “JustLuck1337”, and under the screen name “Bounatirou” on PokerStars. His earliest recorded online chases are from July 2007.
He collected $6.468 million in tournament winnings on Stars, and $1.057 million on Full Tilt. Across those two sites, his lifetime earnings is at an impressive $7.525 million.
In May 2020, he won his first and – so far – only SCOOP (Spring Championship of Online Poker) title on Stars. He finished first in the $530 NLHE event for $82,365.
In September 2019, he finished 5th in a field of 90 entries in the $25,000 WCOOP (World Championship of Online Poker) 8-Max High Roller event. He won $188,140, which is his biggest single online tournament score to date.
In addition, in March 2021, he took down the €1,100 buy-in Unibet Open Online Main Event for €68,527 on Unibet.
Congrats to Super High Roller @DominikNitsche, first Unibet Open champ of 2021. Wins €68,527, 319 entries, €334,950 prize pool, 44 paid. Re @daraokearney @dklappin “Unluckily for them, they didn’t know who I was!”https://t.co/RRYfTaZ6xL
— Unibet Open (@unibetopen) March 24, 2021
→ Sponsorships ←
In 2020, Nitsche founded the poker training app DTO Poker. He runs a YouTube channel under the same branding, where he uploads poker training content and has around just 700 subscribers.
Also, he’s an ambassador to the major online poker room 888Poker.
Latest poker news about Nitsche
