Ossi Ketola “Monarch” – Multi-Million Dollar Poker Battles

Ossi Ketola has played for more money on camera than almost anyone in the history of the game. In under 18 months, this Finnish entrepreneur challenged the world’s best heads-up players – losing €15 million to Dan Cates in Cyprus, winning the biggest pot ever recorded against Alex Foxen, then breaking his own record against Bjorn Li. Every match was livestreamed. Every hand was a spectacle. This is the complete record.

Want the full story of how Ketola built the fortune that funds all of this? See our dedicated profile: Ossi Ketola Net Worth 2026 – Who Is “Monarch” ?

Who Is Ossi Ketola “Monarch”?

Ketola is a Finnish entrepreneur, founder of the CS:GO skin-gambling site CSGOEmpire, and, more recently, the owner of online casino Duel.com. He entered live poker in November 2024 at Triton Monte Carlo and, within 12 months, had played in the biggest broadcasted cash game pots ever recorded.

His alias “Monarch” follows him from the esports world into poker. He plays in elaborate outfits. He challenges opponents publicly. He describes the battles as partly a marketing exercise for Duel — and partly because he genuinely loves the pressure of high stakes. Both things appear to be true.

Ossi Ketola’s Live Tournament Record

Before the heads-up circus began, Ketola made a very real mark on the live tournament circuit. His debut at Triton Monte Carlo in November 2024 was one of the strongest first appearances in recent high-roller history.

His total live tournament earnings now sit at just under $5 million, according to The Hendon Mob. Not bad for someone who had never played live tournaments before 2024.

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Tallinn – The Warm-Up Matches

Before Cyprus and Jeju, Ketola ran a quieter series of heads-up matches at the Bombay Club in Tallinn, Estonia, in August 2025. Stakes were €500K to €1M per side. The format was already locked in – fixed blind levels, set stacks, no top-ups, winner takes all.

Note: Some private sessions at the Bombay Club were not streamed. The results below are from broadcast play only.

Two wins out of three. Confidence high. What happened two weeks later in Cyprus was a proposition entirely different.

Cyprus – Dan “Jungleman” Cates Wins €15 Million

This is the session that put Ketola’s name in every poker headline on the planet. At the first-ever Onyx Super High Roller Series in Cyprus in August 2025, Ketola took on poker legend Dan “Jungleman” Cates in six consecutive heads-up matches with escalating stakes. They started at €1M per side and kept doubling. By the last match, they were playing for €6M each.

All matches in Cyprus were settled in Euros. Over 12 hours, watched by hundreds of thousands of live viewers, it became the highest-stakes poker game ever broadcast.

Cates won four of six matches. When the session ended, he had pocketed approximately €14-15 million in profit – the largest single-session swing in any broadcasted poker game at the time.

After it was over, Ketola sat down with Rob Yong. He said the losses were part of a plan. He said he loves the pain. He said he wants to build a venue – a castle – where the battles can continue properly.

A few weeks later, he was in Jeju.

Triton Jeju – Seven Nights, Five Opponents, $63M in Buy-Ins

The Triton Super High Roller Series in Jeju, South Korea , was where the Monarch story reached its peak – and where two all-time records were broken. All Jeju matches were played and settled in US Dollars. Ketola played three Triton events, cashing in one, but the real action was away from the tournament tables. Over seven consecutive nights, he challenged five different opponents to a combined total of more than $63 million in buy-ins.

Here is every match, every result, and the hands that mattered most.

Nights 1-2: vs. Wiktor “Limitless” Malinowski – September 13

Wiktor “Limitless” Malinowski is not a soft opener. He is one of the most accomplished online cash game players in the world, with multiple seven-figure live results, including a $4.79M Triton win. Ketola challenged him to a $2M match immediately – and asked for a rematch at double stakes when he lost.

Key hand from Match 2 – the $3,780,000 pot:

Malinowski opened 2♣ 2♠. Ketola called with A♣ 4♣. Flop: 5♥ 2♥ K♣ – Malinowski flopped a set of twos. Ketola check-raised to $175,000 with a gutshot straight draw. Turn: 3♠ – Ketola makes his wheel. He moves all-in. Malinowski snap-calls with his set. River: 4♦ – no improvement for Malinowski. Ketola scoops the $3,780,000 pot.

The match swung badly later. A Q♥ 4♠ 2♥ flop hand saw Malinowski win a $7M+ pot, and he finished the night $6 million ahead.

Nights 3-4: vs. Alex Foxen – September 14-15

Four matches across two days. Some of the best poker Ketola has played – and the moment that produced the first all-time record.

September 14:

Final hand of Match 4: Foxen opened K♦ Q♦ to $100,000. Ketola moved all-in to $625,000 with 8♥ 8♣. Foxen called. Board ran T♠ K♣ Q♥ T♦ 4♦ – top two pair for Foxen. Match over.

September 15 – the night of the record pot:

Match 5 final hand: Ketola raised J♠ 8♦ to $150,000. Foxen called with K♦ 9♠. Flop T♠ 3♦ 9♦. Ketola bet $100,000, Foxen called. Turn 3♥. Foxen led $150,000. Ketola called with his open-ended straight draw. River A♥. Foxen checked. Ketola shoved $770,000 as a bluff into Foxen’s third pair. Foxen called. Match over. Another $6M gone.

Match 6 – the hand that changed everything:

Ketola raised K♣ J♥ to $150,000 from a $6.4M stack. Foxen called with 8♦ 6♦ sitting on $5.4M.

Flop: K♦ J♦ 8♣ – top two pair for Ketola, bottom pair plus a flush draw for Foxen. Ketola checked. Foxen checked. The trap was set.

Turn: A♦ – Foxen’s flush completed. He led $250,000. Ketola called with his two pairs. Pot: $800,000. Foxen was a 9-to-1 favorite.

River: K♠ – Ketola rivered kings full of jacks. The whole hand is reversed. Foxen bet $550,000. Ketola burned his time bank chip, tanked for over a minute, then shoved for approximately $6.1 million. Foxen burned through his own time banks and called.

Ketola turned over his boat. “GG.” Foxen tapped the table.

Pot: $10,990,000 – the largest in the history of televised poker at that moment.

Foxen still came out ahead overall across all six matches combined.

Night 5: vs. Elias Talvitie – September 16

Finnish against Finnish. Two $3M matches. One win each.

Night 6: vs. Kayhan Mokri – September 17

Mokri had already beaten Ketola in Cyprus. He showed up in Jeju and won three of four matches.

Night 7: vs. Bjorn Li – September 18-19 – The New All-Time Record

The final opponent of the Jeju week was Hong Kong player Bjorn Li. They played a series of $2M matches – Li won three of four – before agreeing to a final duel-to-the-end format with $8M each on the table. This was not a cleanly numbered match in the official Triton schedule but an extension agreed by both players after the initial series concluded.

Li jumped to an early lead. Then came the hand.

Ketola moved all-in for $6,350,000. Li tanked. Li called. The pot stood at $12,700,000 in nominal terms – the largest ever played in a broadcast or livestreamed poker game. Note: the effective stacks at the moment of the hand were slightly shallower than the full $16M buy-in total, as chips had been won and lost earlier in the session.

Flop: 6♠ 7♥ T♥ – both players with draws. Turn: 3♣. River: 2♠. No improvement for Li. Monarch scooped.

On currency: the Bjorn Li pot is the all-time record in nominal USD terms at $12,700,000. The Cyprus sessions with Jungleman were settled in Euros – at the exchange rate at the time, those swings involved comparable real value. But $12.7M USD is the universally cited record figure.

Ketola won the final duel. His overall loss for the Jeju week landed at approximately $2 million, a minor loss given the volume at stake.

Complete Heads-Up Battle Record

*Televised and livestreamed sessions only. Private off-stream play at venues including the Bombay Club in Tallinn is not included in this figure. -$21M is the only verifiable number for editorial use.

Is Ossi Ketola Good at Poker?

His tournament results say yes. A $2.97M runner-up at Triton Monte Carlo and a WSOP Paradise final table are not flukes for someone in their first year.

In heads-up freezeouts, the picture is more complex. He has beaten Cates, Foxen, Mokri, and Li in individual matches. He has also been read and outplayed in extended sessions against all of them. The pattern is consistent – Ketola opens aggressively, builds early leads, then gives chips back when opponents make adjustments. In fixed-stack formats against professionals who study him, he tends to struggle over time.

What is clear: you do not get invited to play $8M matches with the world’s best if you are completely hopeless. And for someone who had never played live poker before 2024, the improvement curve has been real.

The other dimension is marketing. Ketola has said openly that the battles serve Duel.com as much as they serve his ego. A $21M loss in broadcast content that generates tens of millions of global views is, by casino marketing standards, a bargain.

Verdict – What Ossi Ketola Has Done for Poker

The $12.7M Bjorn Li pot is the largest hand ever played on camera in nominal USD terms. The Cyprus Jungleman session is the largest single-session swing ever recorded. He has been the single biggest contributor to the high-stakes community in recent years.

And Ossi Ketola keeps going. More challenges. More records in the making.

Responsible Gambling and Editorial Transparency

Poker at any stakes should be entertainment, not a financial strategy. The matches described here involve professional players with independent sources of wealth. Do not use them as a template for your own play.

This article is written and maintained by the editorial team at Somuchpoker.com. We receive referral commissions when readers sign up to poker platforms via our links. This does not influence our editorial coverage of players or events.

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