Online poker history is littered with glorious battles and crazy gamblers. There are of course no TV’s to capture golden moments, and so graphs are sometimes needed to paint the pictures that arose from the insanity that was rife in the glory days of online poker.
#6. Million Sunday – Broke Monday
Micro stakes Russian player ‘I7AXA’ went on the run of his life in 2011 when he somehow managed to finish runner-up in the Sunday Million for $143,000.
What he did after that certainly falls into the category of questionable bankroll management. Clearly encouraged by his tournament win, he started playing $5,000 sit n go’s.
After treading water for a little while at first, the inevitable happened – the bottom fell out, and most of his bankroll with it.
He was eventually forced to move down to $30 sit n gos… then $7 ones, before ending up playing with his frequent player points. Four years later, he was still there, grinding freerolls.
#5. A pro not so pro
Our next cautionary tale is that of ‘Moumouth’, who, like many players finds tournaments and sit n gos hard to beat. Moumouth has been trying harder than most and a higher stakes than most, losing a half million dollars over the course of his online ventures.
It turns out that the man behind the gambler was not a random name, but was in fact Erik Koskas. His moment of televised fame came with a 4th place finish in EPT San Remo in 2008, when a young Jason Mercier announced himself to the world with a huge hero call against Koskas. Erik Koskas was briefly sponsored by Winamax before disappearing from the live poker circuit.
#4. Working Class hero
If you want to make money in poker, just find a game you can make money in, then play as many of them as you can.
Rs03rs03 became an online phenomenon doing exactly that at $1 double or nothing sit n gos. Eventualy though, after holding true to this saying for 250,000 games, it all started going wrong.
If you are wondering where all this lost money went, it is now part of other graphs.
#3. The incredible days of Olivier Busquet
Before his collection of cashes n the High Roller circuit, Olivier Busquet had already become an online legend under the screen names ‘Adonis112’ and ‘Liv112’. He has accumulated almost $3 million in rakeback, mostly playing NL HU sit n gos.
For someone with his competitive spirit, crushing the games wasn’t enough, and he sought out further challenges away from online poker, such as his MMA match with JC Alvarado.
#2 The Nanonoko Phenomenon
Nanonoko is a name which is synonymous with online poker, as he played around 4 million hands between 2008 and 2010, generating profits of $2 million without even factoring in rakeback.
Nanonoko had found the blueprint for printing money, but he didn’t experience quite the same success levels when he delved into the high stakes games.
Nevertheless, he remains a champion of online endeavour, and since being signed to team Pokerstars, has been building a good track record in live poker tournaments.
#1 The Isildur1 assassination
Isildur1 stands alone as the most recognisable name in online poker, with almost all of the biggest pots ever played online involving the Swedish pro. He also has the more painful record of the biggest ever losing day in online history, after dropping $4.1 million in the space of 2,500 hands on December 8th 2009.
Brian Hastings, who won this money from Isildur1 wasn’t entirely playing on a level playing field that day, having used the data mined by his friends who had played the swede, to discuss strategy with them and formulate a plan to take him down.
Isildur1 did obviously run very bad in that session too, with his graph suggesting a $1.5 million loss would have been the expected outcome.
The combination of losing all key confrontations and his opponent having an extra edge however, led to this crazy moment in online poker’s history.
Louis Hartwell
Graduated in Media Communication at the University of Lausanne, Louis Hartman is a co-founder of somuchpoker.com. He began his career in Cambodia as freelance journalist. In same time he was making his living by playing poker every night at that time. Intense learner, he read dozens of poker strategy books to improve his skills during many years. With a strong interest about poker "behind the scene" in Asia and his communication skills, Louis launched Somuchpoker in 2014.
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