Speaking of the biggest losses โ this article is dedicated to them. If you think your failures are worth sadness and self-pity, you'll definitely lift your spirits by learning how much people have lost at the poker table!
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Patrik Antonius โ 4 million $
This Finn is well-known in the poker world. In fact, before becoming a poker player, P. Antonius was also a model, tennis player, and coach. However, his passion for poker triumphed, and he became a very recognizable face in WSOP, WPT, and EPT tournaments.
This man, born in Finland, burst onto the poker scene in 2005 and in December of the same year, took second place in the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic tournament in Las Vegas, winning a substantial 1.05 million USD.
Throughout his career, P. Antonius has won somewhere between 11.5 and 12 million euros. Best known as a heads-up specialist, he spent most of his non-tournament time on the Full Tilt Poker platform, where in 2009 he was the highest-earning player. However, there's a saying โ “The higher you rise, the harder you fall.” And the following year, a dark period came in P. Antonius's poker career. Within 12 months, he managed to lose 4,000,000 dollars. In an interview, the player stated that an unexpected back injury completely distracted his concentration, preventing him from playing well. Excuses? Maybe not, because as soon as his health improved, P. Antonius's results returned to their previous form.
An interesting fact โ despite losing four million dollars in a year, P. Antonius holds the record for the largest online prize pot. Playing on Full Tilt against another professional poker player Viktor Blom (Isildur1), the Finn scooped a monstrous 1.356 million USD prize pool.
So, it's safe to say that his gaming history is like a roller coaster!
Guy Laliberte โ >30 million $
Perhaps to ordinary mortals, this seems like an astronomical sum, but not to Canadian billionaire G. Laliberte. This Quebec-born businessman is the founder of the legendary Cirque du Soleil and ranks 15th on the list of the richest Canadians. Many may also remember him as the first Canadian space tourist, who flew in September 2009 and spent 10 and a half hours there. Not only is he a successful businessman, but he also possesses quite good poker skills.
The business titan appeared in the poker arena around 2006 and immediately became a participant in the WPT tournament at the legendary Bellagio casino in Las Vegas, winning nearly 0.7 million USD. And although compared to his wealth, this is not a lot of money, in the poker world, such a prize is truly impressive.
He continued to participate in tournaments periodically, but spent most of his time in the most expensive Full Tilt poker rooms (High Stakes). Throughout his career, G. Laliberte has won a little over 2.5 million USD. Not bad, right?
But how does such a win look when you find out that through the Full Tilt platform, the Canadian billionaire bled about 30-31 million USD. Somewhat amusingly, he lost with no less than six different accounts. However, the businessman claims that a group of fraudsters conspired against him, and he simply acted foolishly, repeatedly falling into the same traps and agreeing to play for huge sums.
Andy Beal โ at least 20 million $
If you think G. Laliberte is one of the most careless and unsuccessful poker players in the world, then A. Beal is an even wealthier businessman whose losses should be even greater than our previously mentioned Canadian, but officially amount to about 16-17 million USD.
However, if you didn't know this fact, A. Beal's biography might suggest that he could be a very successful poker player. Daniel Andrew Beal is the head of Beal Bank, a businessman, investor, and talented mathematician.
In the world of mathematics, he is quite well-known for creating Beal's conjecture โ a generalization of Fermat's Last Theorem, for which he promised a substantial 1 million dollars for proof or disproof.
The man's wealth is estimated at around 9.5 billion USD, so tens of millions lost in poker are just a drop in the ocean.
Nevertheless, the numbers are truly staggering. In the poker world, A. Beal is nicknamed The Professor, The Banker, The Suicide King. He became most famous in the poker world when between 2001 and 2004, he played a series of very expensive (high stakes) games against the best poker players in the world at the time, whom the media dubbed “The Corporation.” The stakes at this table? A staggering 50,000/100,000$.
As a mathematician, A. Beal certainly didn't disappoint, and in May 2004, he won one of the largest hands in poker history โ 11.7 million dollars, shaming the most famous poker players in the world and tarnishing their reputations.
However, “The Corporation” wanted a rematch and the games continued. By around February 2006, the businessman had a loss of 3.3 million dollars. Then A. Beal took a week off and upon returning, he simply destroyed all opponents and within a few days turned a multi-million dollar loss into nearly fourteen million dollars profit. Then “The Corporation” sent their most powerful weapon โ P. Ivey. The poker Tiger Woods impressively wrapped up the business titan and won 16.6 million dollars in three days.
Phil Ivey vs Andy Beal!
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So that would be A. Beal's story. But it doesn't end there. Since these are private games, it's impossible to verify the data, but sources claim A. Beal has lost at least 30-40 million dollars playing at his home.
Other billionaires and Hollywood celebrities (e.g., former Spider-Man actor T. Maguire) would sit at the table with him.
Phil Ivey โ 5-6 million $ย
There is no way to become better in any field than to constantly improve, learn, train, and test yourself in practice. P. Ivey is titled as perhaps the best poker player of all time, and such a label stuck to the man not by accident.
A professional poker player, with a fortune of over 100 million dollars, has long dominated the gambling world. Although he restored a good name to poker players by defeating billionaire A. Beal three days in a row, Phil Ivey has also experienced quite a few failures.
Holder of ten WSOP bracelets, WPT champion, and a member of the Poker Hall of Fame, American P. Ivey has had some truly dark streaks in his career. In 2014 and 2015, he was the poker player who lost the most money online worldwide!ย
Playing hundreds, if not thousands, of unsuccessful sessions in a row, P. Ivey lost 5.1 million dollars during that two-year period alone. It's not every day you see someone titled as one of the best poker players in the world at the top of the list of the biggest losers.
Gus Hansen โ at least 22 million $ย
For some reason, this is not the first and not the last representative of the Scandinavian countries on this list. Although Denmark's inclusion in Scandinavia is debatable, there is no debate about professional poker player G. Hansen's losses at the poker table. Officially, he is the player who has lost the most at the table.
Holder of one WSOP bracelet, three WPT event titles, Dane Gus Hansen is unequivocally one of the most famous and successful poker players not only in Denmark but in all of Europe. During his career, the man has won at least 12 million dollars in live tournaments, not to mention private games or unrecorded tournaments.ย
Despite his great success at the poker table, G. Hansen faces significant financial problems.
The main reason for this is the extraordinarily large losses in live cash games. Frequently visiting the prestigious Bobby's Room at the Bellagio casino in Las Vegas, where the best players play for the highest stakes, the man lost a considerable fortune. And through the Full Tilt Poker platform alone, his losses amount to about 21 million dollars.ย
The Great Dane โ as G. Hansen is nicknamed, recently gave an interview where he revealed why his losses are so large. “If you evaluated my table selection, it would probably be the worst you've ever seen.” The poker player from Denmark also blamed his stubbornness, which, according to the man, led to foolish ambitions to try to prove something, and a multitude of other additional factors also contributed and hindered showing good results.
Nevertheless, at the end of the interview, G. Hansen tipped his hat to his opponents and said that one must also be honest and acknowledge when others catch up with you in skills or even surpass you.ย
Chun Lei Zhou โ over 10 million $ Chun Lei Zhou
Better known by his pseudonym “SamRostan,” in the poker world, C. Lei Zhou is more or less a mid-level figure. Although he has participated and performed successfully in several tournaments, he would not be classified among the best, elite group of players.
This is partly because, according to statistics, at least officially, he is one of the top five biggest losers in online poker.
But it wasn't always like this. In 2016, C. Lei Zhou played as many as 166,226 hands or about 455 per day. He is one of the most active online poker players, so it's no surprise that in 2016 his poker winnings were 748 thousand dollars, and he ranked 3rd in the world in terms of money won.
It's becoming somewhat of a trend, isn't it? Many winning players are also among the biggest losers. C.Lei Zhou played on the PokerStars platform with several different accounts. The profile “Patpatman” has lost 2.06 million USD, while the Full Tilt profile “Patpatpanda” has lost 2.6 million USD. On the latter platform, losses amount to about 10 million dollars.
Despite significant setbacks, it seems that C.Lei Zhou's passion for poker remains undiminished. Another interesting nuance is that the large losses have not turned C.Lei Zhou into an easily bullied player. He remains one of the toughest poker players to beat.ย
Viktor Blom โ 7.5 million $ย
The last member of our list, Swede Viktor Blom, burst into the poker world at just 20 years old โ quite young compared to other top players. As time showed, age was not a barrier, and V.Blom at one point amazed everyone as the biggest poker prodigy. Many remember his famous performance, the likes of which no one has seen in the online poker world. At one point, he played at nine tables (nine-tabling), with stakes of $500/1000, alongside such giants as P.Ivey, P.Antonius, and T.Dwan.
At just 15, V.Blom had already earned about 300 thousand dollars from online poker. He continued to show his greatest success playing online, where within two weeks, at just 18, he won 1.7 million USD.
Then the Swede moved to the Full Tilt platform, where he continued his dominance until he faced the American Stinger88 โ Brian Hastings. After playing heads-up $500/1000 pot-limit Omaha for five hours, V.Blom lost about four million dollars.ย
It is said that after this episode, the Swede was psychologically broken and did not play professional online poker for a couple of months.ย
However, his gaming history is full of impressive highs and lows. At one point, this guy gained the courage to challenge one of the best players of all time โ P.Ivey. After the competition, the Swede said that Ivey was the strongest opponent he had ever faced. The American emptied the Scandinavian's wallet by three million dollars.ย
Nevertheless, the Swede shouldn't be discouraged, as opponents fear him much more than many other online players. The player known by the nickname Isildur1 had to swallow his pride when it was revealed that B.Hastings and several other poker professionals were sharing information about Isildur1‘s hands.
Having accumulated a database of 30 thousand hands, they inevitably gained a significant advantage. Although Full Tilt could not take away the winnings for this, the main initiator of the information sharing lost his privileges (albeit temporarily) on Full Tilt.ย
