Patrik Antonius’ Life: Net Worth, Losses and Private Life

– General Introduction –

Patrik Antonius is a Finnish professional poker player, former tennis player and model. He was born on 13th December 1980 in Helsinki, Finland, but grew up in a city called Vantaa.

He is one of the most famous poker players around. It wasn’t the looks of the former model, but his aggressive playing style, that catapulted him fast to poker stardom in 2005.

The Fin has been featured on several poker TV shows, such as Poker After Dark and High Stakes Poker, and was once a Full Tilt Poker sponsored pro.

According to the online high stakes cash game database, he’s the second biggest online cash game winner of all time with $11.316 million in profit. He also holds the record for the biggest online cash game pot ever won. In November 2009, he won $1.357 million in a single hand of $500/$1,000 heads-up PLO against Viktor “Isildur1” Blom.

With $12 million in tournament earnings alone, he is the number 1 in Finish rankings and in the top 100 on the All-Time Money list worldwide.

– Key Career Dates –

• 1998: He wins the first ever poker tournament he played at his local poker club.
• 2007: He starts appearing on the classic poker TV show Poker After Dark on NBC.
• 2009: He wins a $1.357 million pot against Viktor “Isildur1” Blom in a session of $500/$1,000 heads-up PLO cash game on Full Tilt. That still holds the record for the biggest cash game pot in online poker history.
• 2012: He finishes 2nd in the Aussie Millions $250,000 Challenge for $1,235,369.
• 2018: He finishes 2nd in the HK$2,100,000 Super High Roller Bowl China in Macau for $3.153 million. That is the biggest single live tournament cash of his career to date.

– Patrik Antonius’ Career –

→ Beginnings ←

At the age of 12, Antonius was focused on playing tennis, planning on going pro, but he started showing interest in poker and played a lot with his friends, mainly 5-card draw with partially made-up rules.

As soon as he turned 18, he went to the Helsinki casino to play his first poker tournament. He won it, turning $25 into $260. This shifted his focus from tennis to cards and he was soon found in the Omaha cash games.

As he hadn’t figured out bankroll management from the start, it took him going broke several times over two years until he finally generated a steady income and could make a living through poker.

→ Live Tournaments ←

Antonius has $12.013 million in live tournament earnings, according to his Hendon page. He amassed that hefty sum by finishing in the money in 69 different events over the course of 16 years.

The first recorded cash on his page is from November 2003. He took 4th place in a $220 PLO event for $3,480 at the St.Marteen Open on the island of St.Marteen. However, we do know that he won a small buy-in tourney shortly after his 18th birthday, years before his first Hendon result.

The first time he made a score for over $100K was in September 2005.  He finished 3rd in the €4,200 Main Event at EPT Barcelona for €117,000 ($145,067).

Antonius kept bagging major live cashes throughout the 2000’s and the early 2010’s.

In December 2005, he came in 2nd in the $15,000 Main Event at the Fourth Annual Five Diamond World Poker Classic in the Bellagio. He lost the heads-up battle for the title to a fellow Scandinavian, the Danish Rehne Pedersen, and thus ended up with the $1.046 million second prize.

In January 2012, Antonius finished second in the A$250,000 Challenge NLHE event at the Aussie Millions for A$1.2 million ($1.235 million). This time, 10-time WSOP gold bracelet winner poker legend Phil Ivey was the one who beat him heads-up.

In 2014, however, something unexpected happened: Antonius disappeared from the poker scene, both live and online. In the years between 2015-2017, he only made two recorded live cashes, fora little over $30,000 combined.

Luckily, Antonius’ drought ended in 2018. He started delivering big scores on a regular basis starting in February of that year.

And the best was yet to come.

In March 2018, Antonius got another runner-up finish in a major event. He came in 2nd in the HK$2,100,000 event at the Super High Roller Bowl China in Macau. Antonius won HK$24.735 million, which equaled to $3.154 million – that is the biggest live tournament score of his career to date.

→ World Series of Poker ←

Patrik Antonius is yet to win his first WSOP gold bracelet.

The closest he came to his first World Series title was a 3rd place finish for $311,394 in the $10,000 Pot Limit Omaha Championship in 2007. He got knocked 2 places away from victory out by the eventual winner Michael Mizrachi.

In 2006, he came in 9th in the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. mixed game event for $205,920. That event can be considered historic, since it was the first WSOP tournament with a buy-in higher than the Main Event’s $10,000.

Speaking of the Main Event, Antoninus has two ITM finishes in poker’s most prestigious event. In 2010, he finished 601st for $24,079; while in 2018, he finished 814th for $18,340, He also made it into the money in the WSOP Europe Main Event twice, in 2007 and 2011.

Overall, Antonius has cashed in 13 World Series events for a total of $748,946 combined.

→ Live Cash Games ←

Antonius has appeared on two classic poker TV shows where he played high stakes live cash games in front of cameras: Poker After Dark on NBC and High Stakes Poker on The Game Show Network.

On High Stakes Poker, he played $300/$600 NLHE with a $100 ante and a $100,000 minimum buy-in against such poker greats as Doyle Brunson, Tom Dwan or Phil Ivey.

In addition, he has posted multiple times pictures of the world-famous Bobby’s Room in the Bellagio. Bobby’s Room, named after Bobby Baldwin, is where the highest stakes cash games are running in Vegas – stakes can go up to $800/$1,600, or even more.

In one Instagram post in July 2018, Gus Hansen shared a pic from Bobby’s Room. In it, Antonius was sitting proudly with “all the chips” in front of him – an estimated $1 million chipstack!

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Gus Hansen (@therealgushansen)

→ Online Poker←

According to the online high stakes cash game database, Antonius is the second biggest online cash game winner in poker history. He amassed $11.316 million in profit on Full Tilt, which is second only to Phil Ivey’s $19.243 million in winnings.

He played 500,017 tracked hands on his Full Tilt sponsored pro account “Patrik Antonius” between July 2008 and March 2013. Most of these hands were in the mixed game H.O.R.S.E.

In November 2009, he won a $1.357 million pot off of Viktor “Isildur1” Blom in $500/$1,000 heads-up PLO. This hands still holds the record for the biggest pot in online poker history.

→ Sponsorships←

In 2019, Antonius organized a high buy-in tournament series named after himself, the Patrik Antonius Poker Challenge. So far, due to the Coronavirus pandemic, only stops were held: one in Malta and one in Estonia.

Patrik Antonius on Social Media

  Twitter: https://twitter.com/Patrik_Antonius

  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/patrik_antonius_official/