Alexander ”PostflopAction” Kostritsyn, who plays on PokerStars under the screenname ”joiso”, was the biggest winner in the high stakes games in October. With Gus Hansen and Viktor ”Isildur1” Blom leaving the Full Tilt Professionals team, the highest stakes games have dried up, so noone had a chance to catch the Russian mix game specialist.
For years, Cirque do Soleil founder and billionaire Guy Laliberté was the main target of the high stakes cash games, he has reportedly lost over $24 million over his 6 accounts. After Laliberté stopped playing high stakes, the new donator was mostly Gus Hansen, who has lost over $20 million at Full Tilt Poker’s high stakes tables, he is down $5.5 million this year alone.
It was never clear how Hansen could afford such huge losses, he kept putting in the biggest volume every month. It was rumored that he had received huge payments from Full Tilt Poker every month, and this rumor is supported by the fact that since Hansen has left Full Tilt, he has disappeared from the high stakes tables completely.
Viktor ”Isildur1” Blom, the other Full Tilt Professional is also one of the biggest losers of the year, and his volume has decreased dramatically since the Full Tilt split aswell.
With the absence of the FTP pros, high stakes action moved to PokerStars, and the biggest winner was Alexander ”joiso” Kostritsyn. Kostritsyn, who play under the ”PostflopAction” nickname on Full Tilt earned $740,000 in October. $328,000 of his profit came from the 8-game mix tables, $220,000 from the Omaha Hi-Low tables, $112,000 from Draw Games, $76,000 in Pot Limit Omaha, and $2,870 from the Fix Limit Hold’em tables.
With this, joisi is now currently the biggest cash game winner on PokerStars with more than $1 million in profit.
The second place on the leaderboard belongs to Mikael ”punting-peddler” Thuritz, he played on Full Tilt Poker and won $280,000.
The third place finisher is Ben ”Sauce123” Sulsky, who won $132,000.
The biggest loser of the month was ”SanIker”, he lost $990,000 in 7,517 hands. The second biggest loser was Phil ”Polarizing” Ivey with $231,000 in losses.
The biggest pot of the month went to ”Isildur1”, the hand happened at the $300/$600 PLO tables against Kostritsyn. Isildur1 raised to $1,800 on the button, PostflopAction 3bet to $5,400, Isildur1 4bet to $16,200, PostflopAction called. Both players checked the 4-9-T two diamonds flop, and PostflopAction bet $32,400 on the 5 turn, Isildur1 called. After a Ten on the river, PostflopAction checked, Isildur1 shoved all-in with $82,000, and PostflopAction called. Isildur1 showed down A-A-Q-T for trip tens and won the $261,000 pot.
The biggest winner of the year is still Daniel ”jungleman12” Cates with $2,8 million in profits, followed closely by punting-peddlerwho has $2,5 millio in profits. The biggest loser is the aforementioned Gus Hansen and this is unlikely to change in case the high stakes pro stays away from the tables for the rest of the year.