April was a busy, swingy month in high-stakes poker that saw two names emerge above all others.
Patrik Antonius and the resurfaced Niki Jedlicka didn’t just post a few small wins, they crushed the opposition for millions.
Meanwhile online superstars Viktor Blom and Phil Ivey were at the opposite end of the spectrum with huge losses spread over the entire month.
Antonius’ results were particularly impressive considering the run he’s had in online poker since the results of Black Friday.
Rumour had it that Antonius was playing as FakeLove888 on PokerStars. That account posted huge losses after Black Friday.
Now that he’s returned to the games on Full Tilt the 33 year old seems to have recovered, especially taking last month into account.
$1.8 million dollar profit gives Patrik Antonius the number one spot in April, and even in the yearly leaderboard, he’s now number two.
Jedlicka Proves He Hasn't Lost a Step
Right on Antonius' heels, in both monthly and yearly profit rankings, is Niki Jedlicka. Particularly during the first two weeks of April, Jedlicka brought fireworks to the table.
He ran it up to two million dollar profit, temporarily, before the darks side of variance struck and cost him two thirds of his winnings.
By now, something else seems to have caught Jedlicka’s attention. He’s been staying away from the tables.
Staying away from the tables would be unthinkable for Viktor Blom, although the Swede did amass $2 million in losses last month.
With that, Blom has gone from one of the top five winners to one of the top five losers of the year within only two months!
In his company is a player named samrostan aka patpatpanda who was recently revealed to be Chinese player Chun Lei Zhou, who has yet to make any significant live tournament appearances.
During the EPT Grand Final, MalACEsia was also identified. He is 50 year old Chinese Paul Phua.
He is currently living in Malaysia, as his nickname suggests, and he has made a fortune as an investment banker.
He and Malaysian aluminium billionaire Richard Yong are supposed to be the main initiators of the ultra-high cash games in Macau.
MalAcesia had been almost solely responsible for the renaissance of NLHE games in early 2013. Right now, these continue buzzing even if the biggest whale is not floating about in the area.
No surprise then that the largest pot of the month played out in a game of No-Limit Hold’em.
It was a $300/$600 6-max table with Dmitry Rhje Yaskevich, Denoking, Phil Polarizing Ivey, and Isaac LuvtheWNBA. All the money went in pre-flop.
Rhje folded UTG, Phil Ivey raised to $1800, but decided to fold quickly to the ensuing raising war between Haxton and Denoking.
Eventually, both players had invested around $95,000. To reduce variance, the board was dealt twice.
Board #1:
Board #2:
And these were the hands of the two combatants:
luvtheWNBA:
Denoking:
Denoking was dominating this hand, won on both boards and added another $192k pot to his bankroll.
Monthly and yearly rankings (according to highstakesDB.com)
Biggest Winners in April:
Patrik FinddaGrind Antonius, $1,801,075
Niki Jedlicka, $1,252,909
Alexandre Alexonmoon Luneau, $691,846
Phil OMGClayAiken Galfond, $338,136
Ronny ronnyr37617 Kaiser, $288,478
Biggest Losers in April:
Viktor Isildur1 Blom, $-2,019,645
Chun samrostan Lei Zhou, $-1,785,457
Phil Polarizing Ivey, $-1,422,125
CrazyElior, $-614,818
Paul MalACEsia Phua, $-296,726
Biggest Winners in 2014:
Niklas Ragen70 Heinecker, $1,326,731
Patrik FinddaGrind Antonius, $1,261,310
Niki Jedlicka, $1,255,251
Dan jungleman12 Cates, $760,028
Douglas WCGRider Polk, $690,745
Biggest Losers in 2014:
Gus Hansen, $-2,571,124
Chun samrostan Lei Zhou, $-2,367,039
Phil Polarizing Ivey, $-1,894,816
CrazyElior, $-912,969
Viktor Isildur1 Blom, $-755,679
