– General Information –
Linus Loeliger, better knowns as his PokerStars moniker LLinusLLove, is a Swiss professional poker player. His exact date of birth is not public, his Wikipedia page simply states he was born in either 1994 or 1995.
LLinusLLove is known as one of the greatest online cash game players in the world. He’s played 140,000 tracked hands on Stars and is in over $1.4 million in profit. Even though tracking stopped, he’s still playing the highest stakes cash games on the site against other famous online pros, such as the Belgian OtB_RedBarron.
He’s also an accomplished live tournament player. He currently leads Hendon’s Swiss all time money list with $1.865 million in career earnings.
– Key Career Dates –
- 2013: He makes a post on the 2+2 Forum, declaring he wants to build his $150 bankroll up by playing NL10 until he is able to play NL100 before the end of the year.
- 2016: He starts playing $25/$50 cash games and higher on PokerStars.
- 2017: His identity is revealed to the poker fans.
- 2019: He wins the £25,000 Triton 6-Handed Turbo event in London for £690,000. That is his biggest single live tournament cash to date.
– Linus Loeliger’s Career –
→ Beginnings ←
In March 2013, someone by the username Deepz created a thread in the 2+2 Forum’s “Goals & Challenges” topic with the title “NL10 to NL100 6-Max”.
His first post read:
“Hey 2p2’ers
I’m 19 years old living in Switzerland and been playing poker for a few months and I’ve read few books and tons of threads on this forum.
I first started playing on 888poker but I’ve always had some tilting problems and BRM-problems so to help that I’m gonna start a challenge, where i update graphs, hands and other stuff.
I do this challenge for me so I stay in my BRM and so I can review some hands in this thread.
With this new challenge I switched to a new site, Pokerstars and I’m starting at NL10 6 max with a 15 BI – BRM.
My goal is to get to 100NL by the end of the year 2013. My stars-name is “llinusllove” by the way.
First goal to achieve is to get to NL16 with a BR of 240$
Current BR: 150$
I’ll try to play everyday for 3-4hours straight and to update graphs and hands 4-5 times a week.”
He got only one responder with a message of support. Then, he posted a few updates on his bankroll until April 2013.
The next response is from November 2016. Someone commented “well he’s playing NL10,000 right now so I guess his challenge worked”.
Technically, it is unclear whether he made it to the NL100 stakes by the end of 2013. However, that is certain that he was playing NL5,000 and NL10,000 by May 2016.
The fresh name in the high stakes cash scene on PokerStars, especially with his active 2+2 Forums presence, caught the attention of the online poker community. However, LLinusLLove wished to remain anonymous because, as he put it, “usually there’s nothing good coming from it” – it being letting poker fans know about his true identity.
That all changed in August 2017 when pokernews.com ran a piece revealing who’s behind the LLinusLLove screen name on PS.
It was inevitable since someone who he made money transfers with leaked his real name to an online poker site. Since his identity was out, he decided to buy in some widely covered high buy-in tournaments as well.
→ Live Tournaments ←
Loeliger was visiting some poker player friends in London in April 2016. Given the fact that he was focusing solely on online cash games at the time, he decided to play a £2,000 UKIPT event at the Hippodrome not for profit, just for fun. Yet he was able to finish first in the 114-player field and win the £55,650 first prize.
Prior to that result, his Hendon page only showed two live cashes for a combined $6,132. Both events were played in Malta where he moved to while playing online poker professionally.
After his identity was made public, Loeliger started playing highly publicized, high buy-in events around the world. His first high roller was the €50,000 event at the PokerStars Championship Barcelona. Fresh off of his demasking in 2017, he had a lot of attention on him. However, he failed to cash.
In 2019, he started playing the Triton high roller series’ events. First, he came in 3rd in a HK$250,000 turbo tournament in Montenegro for $219,262 .
Then, when the series made a stop in London, the British capital brought luck to Loeliger again.
He finished 3rd again, this time in the £50,000 8-handed event for £594,000. He also won the £25,000 6-handed turbo event for £690,000 ($840,039). That is the biggest live tournament score of his career to date.
With just 6 individual cashes on his Hendon page, he leads the Swiss all time money list on the site with $1.865 million in live tournament earnings.
→ Online Poker ←
LLinusLLove is one of the best known screen names in the high stakes online cash game scene.
According to an online database, he played around 140,000 tracked cash game hands on stakes $25/$50 and higher between May 2016 and April 2018. In that sample, he’s $1.438 million in profit. That translates to an average of $10.05 won per hand.
This doesn’t mean that Loeliger stopped playing after April 2018, rather the website stopped tracking hands.
He plays NLHE almost exclusively, usually on $100/$200 stakes. His biggest recorded online cash game pot was $137,000 that he won against Timofey “TrueTeller” Kuznetsov in March 2018.
When it comes to online tournaments, LLinusLLove doesn’t have a PocketFives account with publicly available tournament results. However, he has tallied up a few big online tournament scores as well.
In September 2018, for example, he took down a $25K WCOOP (World Championship of Online Poker) event for $587,747.
In May 2018, he took 2nd place in a $2,100 SCOOP (Spring Championship of Online Poker) event for $145,315. Also, he won a weekly $5K tournament on GGPoker in March 2019 for which he got $90,760.
During the Corona crisis in April 2020, Linus played the Poker Masters Online and took down the $50,000 Main Event for $1,097,250. Overall he came third in the standings for the purple jacket.
→ Scandals ←
His crazy hands against OtB_RedBarron
In December 2018, popular poker YouTuber Joe Ingram decided to make a video about the crazy and unusual plays that LLinusLLove made while playing high stakes heads-up cash game against Jonas “Otb_RedBarron” Mols.
The two made some seemingly unreasonable decisions – for example, OtB_RedBarron called a 47 BB all-in on the river with an underpair. In another hand, LLinusLLove 3-bet on the A36, one spade flop with JT of spades.
Ingram revisited the topic, uploading another video about a few weeks later.
In that video, he featured another $25/$50 heads-up hand between OtB_RedBarron and LLinusLLove. The Belgian poker pro called an all-in 3-bet on the turn with nothing but a gutshot straight draw in that hand.
Latest poker news about Loeliger
