With 2016 now consigned to the pages of history, we delve into the numbers and take a closer look at who the big online winners and losers of last year were.
We use HighstakesDB as our source, and while this is a globally recognised website with accurate tracking, it doesn’t necessarily tell the entire story.
Tournament wins are not included for example, and the stats don’t take into account all poker sites and all stakes.
It should also be noted that HigstakesDB removed its opt out system at the start of last year, meaning that it now has a far more comprehensive collection of results for 2016.
With that covered, let’s examine who won what….
The Winners
1st – Alexander “joiso” Kostritsyn
At the top of the tree is young Russian pro Alexander Kostritsyn. Having initially set down his gaming roots in Starcraft, he quickly grew into the world of poker and has almost $9 million in profits across his two accounts. The former of those two is “postflop action” on Full Tilt, but he currently operates under the pseudonym “joiso” on PokerStars.
In 2016 he played 117,143 hands and added $1,466,568 to his bankroll.
2nd – Ben “Sauce123” Sulsky $815,517
Established online pro Ben “Sauce123” Sulsky claims the silver medal this year after an excellent year at the tables. He has been prolific at Holdem and PLO in recent years, with shorthanded and heads-up play being his specialist area. With limited action at those tables he has been playing more mixed games during the last year.
It doesn’t seem to have done his bankroll any harm either, as he accumulated profits of $815,517 over 86,949 hands played.
3rd – SamRostan $748,018.
Given his history of struggling at the very highest level against the best in the world, it’s something of a surprise to see “SamRostan” make the top three on our list, but the fact that he has played 166,228 hands in the last year says a lot about is work ethic, which may explain his turnaround lately. This account, along with “Samrostan” and “Patpatpanda” is widely attributed to Chun Lei Zhou, and if they are indeed all the same player then he has lost millions over the years. The first step to recouping those losses has now been taken in 2016, as SamRostan bagged $748,018.
| Player | Hands | Winnings |
| joiso | 117143 | $1,466,568 |
| Sauce123 | 86949 | $815,517 |
| Samrostan | 166228 | $748,018 |
| Cobus83 | 39594 | $626,487 |
| OtB_RedBaron | 32656 | $579,900 |
| Lrslzk | 74656 | $565,077 |
| Educa-p0ker | 29511 | $539,974 |
| bajskorven87 | 15195 | $500,954 |
| ChaoRen160 | 52242 | $466,416 |
| RaulGonzalez | 67001 | $450,402 |
The Losers
1st – bodamos $868,252
Little is known about “bodamos” but we do know that this player set fire to $868,252 in 2016 and has been playing at the online tables since 2013. It only took 11,202 hands to dust off this huge sum, and their total online losses now exceed $2 million.
2nd –Alex “Kanu7” Millar $635,521
Another surprise entry takes up 2nd spot on the losers list – Alex “Kanu7” Millar. The talented UK pro is normally one of the big winners online and he still has over $2.5 million in profits even considering his difficult run lately. After a terrible start to the year, he stabilised the situation but couldn’t recover enough to get anywhere near even. Kanu7 finished up with losses of $635,521 over 28,694 hands.
3rd and 4th: “spaise11” & “candela2005”
“spaise11” comes in at 3rd on our list, and much like “candela2005” in 4th, the identity of the player behind the name remains unknown. These players posted losses of $624,166 and $546,253 over 30,887 and 13,543 hands respectively.
5th – Viktor “Isildur1” Blom $489,789
Another surprise name on this list was that of superstar Viktor “Isildur1” Blom who finished 2016 as the 5th biggest loser. He struggled to make much progress for large parts of the year, much to the dismay of his fans and despite a recovery of sorts towards the end of the year, Isildur finished with losses of $489,789.
More: Viktor Blom in 2016: What’s Going on?
On the bright side, his thirst for high stakes action appears to remain unquenchable – he played 209,224 hands in 2016, which is more than any other player at these stakes.
| Player | Hands | Losses |
| bodamos | 11202 | -868,252 |
| Kanu7 | 28694 | -635,521 |
| spaise411 | 30887 | -624,166 |
| candela2005 | 13534 | -546,253 |
| Isildur1 | 209224 | -489,789 |
| wilhasha | 48065 | -465,476 |
| flong78 | 51662 | -438,634 |
| refaelamit | 18385 | -381,888 |
| ClockWyze | 7558 | -341,934 |
| Katya_18 | 54586 | -330,074 |
Article By Craig Bradshaw
