Who was the best High Stakes Hold’em player in 2011? Which Omaha Mid Stakes reg had the highest earnings? We went through our entire database of hands last year and the results are in! Several familiar names top the lists, as well as some surprising new faces.

This time around we looked at earnings, because after all, the bottomline is what pays the bills. The winners are awarded an exclusive PTR Player of the Year badge to add to their trophy case.

Here are the top online cash game winners of 2011:

	Hold’em			Omaha
Nosebleeds: takechip			Nosebleeds: Ilari FIN
High Stakes:Trueteller			High Stakes: PepperoniF
Mid Stakes: fish2013			Mid Stakes: RivalzZz
Low Stakes: gutter23			Low Stakes: alien slayer
Micro Stakes: fareed1234			Micro Stakes: tShGsT

To see the complete list of players in each category, visit the PTR Poker Player of the Year page.

* Earnings were calculated by site for poker rooms operating for the entire year.

Hold’em Players of the Year

Nosebleeds ($100/$200 and up)

takechip – A common fixture on PTR’s Biggest Online Pots leaderboard, humble Canadian Phil D’Auteuil had a great 2011, ending the year with an incredible run to take home the most earnings at the highest of high stakes. Never one to take poker too seriously, Phil challenged the likes of Phil “MrSweets” Galfond, LiangYu and !P0krparty¡ to end the year with the distinction of PTR Hold’em Nosebleed Player of the Year, edging out unknown iPoker player GreeceP to take the crown. TakeChip also came in 8th in the Omaha Nosebleed rankings.

High Stakes ($10/20 – $50/$100)

Trueteller – Little is known about this CAP NLH specialist from Russia except that he has one of the most beautiful graphs in all of poker. Trueteller had a slow start but hit his stride in March, ending the year with $1,054,503 in earnings from over 700k hands between $20NL and $100NL.

Mid Stakes ($2/$4 – $5 /$10)

fish2013 – The epitome of an online grinder, this Belarusian took in $247,799 in midstakes games in 2011, with a BB/100 of 4.15.

Low Stakes ($0.50/$1.00 – $1/2 )

gutter23 - May UGL winner and 2p2 reg Richard Guttman is consistent as they come, winning $97,589 over an incredible 2M hands.

Micro Stakes ($0.01/$0.02 – $0.25-$0.50)

fareed1234 - Another UGL regular and our only representative from Trinidad and Tobago, fareed1234 tops the Micro Stakes earners. Great work, but we side with the commenters. With a BB/100 of 4.81, we’d like to see a move up!

Omaha Players of the Year

Nosebleeds ($100/$200 and up)

Ilari FIN - It seems like a week doesn’t go by without Ilari Sahamies’ name on railbird reports all over the poker sphere. The popular Fin came back from near busto in the summer to become the top online cash player of the year at $200PLO and up. Including the $421k biggest pot ever on Stars, Ilari Fin netted $928,104 at Omaha $200PLO+, and over $1.6M overall (yes, we missed a few hands vs Isildur1, we’re not perfect!).

High Stakes ($10/20 – $50/$100)

PepperoniF – Riu Cao had a breakout year in 2011, gaining prominence after taking on Viktor ‘Isildur1‘ Blom in a SuperStar Showdown and going on a summer heater at the expense of big names such as Sauce123, le kork and gavz101. On PokerStars alone, the Heads Up PLO specialist made $1,280,217 in just 95,258 hands at stakes between $20 to $100. We expect to see a lot of Riu in 2012.

Mid Stakes ($2/$4 – $5 /$10)

RivalzZz – The unknown German had a rollercoaster year as shown by his sporadic graph, crushing the $3/$6 and $5/$10PLO games, only to lose it all in a move up to $25/$50PLO. After hitting a career valley last week, RivalzZz has now returned to the Mid Stakes to find his game again.

Low Stakes ($0.50/$1.00 – $1/2 )

alien slayer – Another strong player from Germany, alien slayer took in nearly $100k in 610k hands last year to win the Low Stakes crown.

Micro Stakes ($0.01/$0.02 – $0.25-$0.50)

tShGsT - This primarily PLO HU player from Canada has a stellar graph to go with an unpronounceable screen name.

See the full list here: PTR Poker Player of the Year

Why no nanonoko, you’re wondering? The 2009 PTR Medium and High Stakes Player of the Year actually made the top ten on both lists for the second year in a row, and was one of only five players to make it onto two top ten lists (the others being l0ve2playu, alexeimartov, mTw-Davin and takechip). But despite another consistent year, new players have emerged at the very top. Such is the changing nature of the game, and we can’t wait to which players put their mark on 2012.

Any players you think should’ve made the cut?  Surprised to see some players? Comment about it in this forum post.

The year 2011 will forever be remembered by online poker players as the year that changed poker forever. The ripple effects of Black Friday continue to be felt throughout the industry as players have been forced to move on, either by relocating from the U.S., finding games at live card rooms, or just bearing the brunt of decreased online tournament prize pools and less action at the tables in cash games. While this may have been the biggest story of the year, it’s certainly not the only one. 2011 still produced some incredible results from amazing players, and showed everyone in the game of poker that there is still a lot of action left on the tables.

Notably absent are some of the biggest names from the tables of yester-year like Dwan, Antonius, Ivey, and the like, as those names have been replaced by some of the new up and coming stars of today. In a lead up to next week’s 2011 PokerTableRatings Player of the Year Awards, we’d like to single out five players for their outstanding achievements in the past year.

Breakout Player of the Year

Many would argue Swedish PokerStars Pro Viktor “Isildur1” Blom would take this award in a walk, but his 2010 campaign was equally as impressive, so we’d like to recognize Rui “PepperoniF” Cao’s achievements in 2011. You can catch Cao most frequently at the $50/$100 PLO tables playing heads up with the biggest names on PokerStars, and 2011 was the year for “Pepperoni11″ to really shine. In March, Riu Cao hit the 10k mark of hands played, and in November bypassed the 100k mark, peaking his earnings at just over $1.4 million in earnings sometime in mid-August. Despite a rough December, Cao was able to pull out more than $700k in profits on the year on PokerStars, earning him the award of PTR’s Breakout Player of the Year.

Comeback Player of the Year

Everyone enjoys a good comeback story and there are plenty of stories to choose from in this category. The story of Illari “Ilari FIN” Sahamies comes first to mind, and the rebound that the Fin experienced in 2011 was one for the record books. Ilari began his year relatively under the radar, but in August the Fin turned it up in a big way. August 25^th included Ilari’s best day at the tables where he booked a $794,531 profit including a couple of monster sessions. He followed that performance up with a career worst loss to Isildur1 of $753,268 just two days later, in what was one of the most remarkable skids for railbirds to watch throughout the year. Undeterred, Sahamies continued his grind on the year, and by the end of 2011 Sahamies had rebounded from his catastrophic loss on August 27^th to net more than $2 million in just over 3 months of work, marking one of the most successful quarters in the history of online poker. Sahamies has also been active early in 2012, so don’t be surprised to see him in the front of the line with levels of interest on the Fin continuing to soar.

Top U.S. Ex-Pat of the Year

The list of poker pros moving out of the United States to continue their online poker careers was a long one, highlighted by famous names such as Justin “ZeeJustin” Bonomo, Ben “Sauce123” Sulsky, Richard “nutsinho” Lyndaker, Kevin “WizardofAhhs” Thurman and Dan “w00ki3z.” Cates. Of this long list, the player that stands out above the rest is Phil “MrSweets28” Galfond. Galfond’s relocation to Canada took a little longer than some other online grinders, but when he returned to the cash games on PokerStars in July for the first time since April 15th, it seemed to send a signal to everyone in the online poker universe that the game was officially back. While the impact of his results at the table would pale in comparison when you compared his earnings to his impact of simply throwing chips around, he also had a great second half of the year, reaching a PokerStars career peak of $2.2M on three separate occasions.

Honorable mention goes to Randy “nanonoko” Lew, who coincidentally chose Vancouver as his home base.

Ultimate Grinder of the Year

Always a much debated category, the player considered the Ultimate Grinder of the year will have had to log countless hours in front of a screen to be considered. Everyone likes to look at a graph that slants steadily upward, which means that everyone can appreciate winner of this year’s award, “Gogol’s Nose“. After logging more than 1.6 million hands at $2/$4 NLH SH and another nearly 400k hands at $3/$6 NLH SH, this grinder has seen a steady rise in his graph and a clear level of profit from the moment that he hit the tables back in September of 2008. Steadily grinding away, Gogol’s Nose saw his best career day on June 30^th this year, earning a whopping $9,623. Let me repeat that, he had his best day in his career by earning less than $10k in a day. And yet, his graph continued its ascension throughout the year, reaching it’s peak on November 15^th at $646,648. The model for online grinding consistency, Gogol’s Nose has spent countless hours at the table, and earns this award going away.

Honorable mentions to the likes of “pobolero” and “forhaley“, regulars on PTR’s UGL Leaderboards. We’ve also got a surprise in store for the Ultimate Grinder Leaderboards that will be launching this Spring!

Most Popular Poker Player

Viktor “Isildur1” Blom. There can’t really be a lot of room to argue this one as Blom was the most searched player in 2011 with players flocking to the Swedish PokerStars Pro to see how he was performing as a daily occurrence. By controlling the biggest action at the nose bleed stakes as well as capturing the world’s attention with the SuperStar Showdowns versus several different opponents, Blom was the Most Popular Player in 2011 by a landslide.

Biggest Online Pot of the Year

Whether it be set over set, a double belly-buster with a nut-flush draw, or just a simple coin-flip, every player loves to see the cartoon sized pots where the highest stakes players gamble mega mansion sized pots to see who will come out with all the chips. We didn’t see the $1 million pots that were common place on Full Tilt in years past, but 6-figure pots were not out of the norm either. Almost all of the biggest pots were at the Stars PLO tables, tables like this huge $200/$400 PLO SH hand between Ilari FIN, Bernard-bb and Andreas “Skjervøy” Torbergsen. At showdown, it was Ilari catching a runner runner nut flush with his Kh4cAs6h over Bernard-bb’s Ad2dAs7s to take down the $421,821, making it the biggest pot ever recorded on PokerStars.

Agree with the choices? Who would you have picked? Share your opinion in this forum topic.

Stay tuned next week for the results of 2011’s PTR Poker Player of the Year Awards.

Dominating the high-stakes tables in the first half of the year with several SuperStar Showdowns against the best heads up players in the world, Viktor “Isildur1″ Blom was not surprisingly the most searched online poker player profile on PTR in 2011.  After a brief disappearance, Isildur1 is back at the $50/$100 PLO (6-max) tables.

In second, after taking a break to move to Vancouver, Canada due to Black Friday, Randy “nanonoko” Lew continued his consistent play which is shown in his stellar PTR graph. Nanonoko’s popularity was boosted by an excellent Team PokerStars documentary “I AM NANONOKO”  released early in the year.

The third most popular poker player on PTR in 2011 belonged to the current high-stakes king, Ilari “Ilari FIN” Sahamies, who had a rollercoaster year. Ziigmund’s massive swings began with an epic run in the summer which ended abruptly after a historic PLO showdown with Isildur1 that left him feeling down but staying classy in defeat.

From Ilari’s official blog (August 27, 2011):

I played very weak and that was fair I lost my money.Now my girlfriend has to use sunglasses few days.Only good thing those money went to Isildur,no any nit guys.I was little bit unlucky too but he played much better than me so no explains.I start to play 25 50 next week.I think I ll go some pokertrips too this year…but (expletive) I hate poker”

However Ilari has more than recovered and is now regularly involved in nearly all of the biggest pots in the online world.

Without further ado, the 20 most searched player profiles on PTR in 2011 (18 on Stars, 2 on Full Tilt):

1. Isildur1
2. nanonoko
3. Ilari FIN
4. mrsweets28
5. durrrr
6. 0Human0
7. LuckyGump
8. KidPoker
9. Sauce123
10. Chiren80
11. jungleman12
12. nutsinho
13. gavz101
14. !p0krparty¡
15. PepperoniF
16. urubu111
17. urnotindangr
18. innerpsy
19. L. Veldhuis
20. takechip

Surprised by any players? Share your thoughts in this forum post.

You can also get a list of the most searched players on iPoker, Ongame, Merge and other networks with our Popular Online Poker Players Today leaderboard.

Results for November 2011 UGL 200NL, 400NL and 600NL:

MakoEV takes down his first UGL badge with a very strong November, winning $13,268 over 100,889 hands. He just barely edged out fellow PokerStars grinder inwooke, who brought his lifetime winnings up to $327,686 according to PTR. While PokerStars players still dominated the top spots in the UGL race, players from sites allowing U.S. residents started to make some noise in November. Cake Poker regular Be_careful and Bodog regular Hdoggy turned in very solid months, making $10,852 and $9,169 respectively. Both these players boast winrates of over 5 BB/100 over more than 500,000 hand samples, perhaps indicating that these sites still open to U.S. players could offer softer games than PokerStars.
Full 200NL results

While there were some new names on the 400NL leaderboard, well-known Stars grinder GusanoZ earned his first UGL badge making $21,430 over 61,368 hands. He added to his very consistent PTR graph, winning at a rate of 4.37 BB/100 for the month and bringing his lifetime PTR earnings up to $171,155. Looking to make a name for themselves, Merge player DarwinBarney and iPoker regular y3nomruteglliwi had very solid Novembers, making $19,208 and $18,020 respectively. It’ll be very interesting to watch in the coming months to see if PokerStars players will be able to regain their domination of the UGL leaderboards or if Merge, Bodog, and iPoker regulars will continue to grind their way onto the UGL leaderboards.
Full 400NL results

Despite logging only 10,721 hands in November, Stars player and LeggoPoker coach dougiedan678 earned his first UGL badge making $19,710 over this small number of hands. Though his monthly winrate of 15.32 BB/100 is certainly unsustainable, it would be interesting to see what kind of winrate this talented player could sustain if he put in some significant volume at midstakes. Forhayley followed up his first UGL badge in October with a runner-up finish in November. With an additional $18,158 in profits for November, He continued tearing up the mistakes games this month, bringing his lifetime winnings to over $330,000. Betstreet also finished in the top 5 of the UGL in back-to-back months, following up his third place finish in the October UGL with a fourth place finish in this month’s race. Although he only has a lifetime total of 272,140 hands tracked by PTR, he is quickly establishing himself as a consistent winner in some of the toughest games on the net.

Full 600NL results

Follow all the action on the UGL Leaderboards.

Comments or feedback on the UGL Leaderboard list or article above? Want to give props to the UGL winners or runner-ups? Head to the PTR forums for further discussion!

Comments have been disabled as we are currently updating our commenting system.

Three of the highstakes regulars from last week’s action that generated pots of $266k and $196k were at it again Wednesday on PokerStars, but the high-stakes action only lasted a few hundred hands, with two of the three finishing the day with six-figure swings.

Garfield25, the online screen name for Canadian Peter Chan, was the big winner of the matches, besting Ilari ‘Ilari Fin‘ Sahamies in a short $200/400 HU PLO match.  Fake Love888 (rumored to be Patrik Antonius) also joined the games briefly, logging 96 hands and winning about $8,000. Here are some of the biggest hands from the session:

1. Garfield25 hits a favorable flop and fades Ilari’s draws in the biggest pot of the match.
2. Here’s what drawing to one out in a $79k pot is like.
3. The river helps Garfield just a little more than Ilari in this $77k pot.
4. Ilari Fin gets bullied out of a sizable pot on the river.
5. Ilari somehow fades a straight flush during his bad run.

As you can see, Garfield25 was the recipient of some pretty favorable cards. His good luck helped him net over $155k for his efforts in just over 350 hands, while his opponent saw almost $165k go across the table on Wednesday. It was a rough day for Ilari Sahamies, but he is still PokerStars’ biggest earners this year (See PTR’s Top Online Poker Winners report for the complete top 50 on Stars). 

Garfield25, on the other hand, has had quite a ride at Stars by the look of his wildly oscillating graph. He is almost in the black after this session, needing only ~$250k to spring him back into profitability. Will he be able to come back after having been down over half a million dollars this year? Check back to see. With Ilari already back at the PLO tables, the action may happen sooner than you think.

What do you think about this matchup? Where has Viktor ‘Isildur1′ Blom been? Share your thoughts in this forum post.

In an attempt to make their games friendlier for recreational players, Bodog released an update today with significant and controversial changes to their poker client:

• Player names and avatars removed (truly anonymous tables)
• Note taking removed
• “Sit out next big blind” feature added
• Icon added to the top right of tables to launch in-client Blackjack
• Preferred seating removed
• Added a “Rabbit Cam” to see remaining community cards even if the hand has finished.
• “Points to cash” feature removed
• “Auto muck” feature removed

In a classic example of news release spin, Bodog also announced that players can now “play up to 20 tables”. Tournament tables, yes, and only assuming there are enough active tournaments to play in. Cash and SNG’s are still limited to a 4 table maximum.

Following up on a Calvin Ayre piece slamming poker tracking sites like PokerScout, this latest move is another example of Bodog trying to better accommodate recreational players. By limiting the amount of external information players can gain on and off the tables, the playing field has essentially been made equal for everyone.

A screenshot of the new Bodog poker client, with seat numbers only and much chastised redesign:

However, the update has many negative consequences. As poker involves making reads off of individual players, by making everyone anonymous, the personal touch of the game has been virtually removed. No longer can players recognize each other, take notes, or chat with someone they’re familiar with. This further reduces a dynamic game with recognizable personalities into one that is potentially anonymous and barren.

The changes also raise a concern with the issue of collusion and botting. As hands can no longer be traced back to individual screen names, players maybe able to take advantage of their anonymity while avoid being detected. This could cause many negative consequences to the integrity of the games at Bodog.

Unfortunately for our users, as screen names are now unavailable Bodog player profiles will no longer be updated on PokerTableRatings.

As outlined in many threads on the 2+2 forums, the overwhelming reception from Bodog regulars has been negative. Many people especially dislike the removal of player names, among the many other changes listed. In addition, numerous players have reported serious issues with the software since the update, including frequent crashes during hands and CPU resource hogging, despite the news releases’s promise of “Improved accessibility and site speed”. The outrage has further escalated on 2+2  as a wave of players expressed that they will no longer play on Bodog and are in the process of withdrawing their bankrolls.

Thus at the expense of regs and pros, Bodog has made changes to create an attractive playground for casual players, which aligns well with their sports betting business. Mobile could also be in the works, as this type of anonymous gaming is conducive to the “pickup and play” mobile gaming market. It will be interesting to see how these changes play out for Bodog in the near future. There have been no indications of other networks following suit, so they remain alone in their attempts to either reshape the poker landscape or carve out a niche in the online poker market.

Do you agree with the changes? Express your opinion in this PTR forum topic.

After years of beating the highest stakes of online poker, Tri “SlowHabit” Nguyen became a coach to several high profile poker players to teach his winning ways to others. After beating the games in the early years of online poker, Nguyen played a small amount on PokerStars as QuickStilz. Drawing on his ability to explain complicated poker concepts and break them down into simple and understandable terms, Nguyen found his way as a writer, launching the acclaimed “Let There Be Range,” which he co-authored with high stakes superstar Cole “CTS” South. Nguyen has a new book coming out in December titled “How I Made My First Million from Poker,” and we caught up with the acclaimed coach and author to chat about his journey.

PTR: How did you get your start playing online poker?

Tri Nguyen: First of all, I’m Vietnamese. So, I grew up playing cards. Not really Texas Hold’em, or even poker in general, but playing cards with our family and friends. Every New Year, our parents would give us some money and we’d sit around and play different card games, so it was always a part of my upbringing and part of the culture of my family. It was just a natural thing for us to do with our money was to play cards with our friends and family. Sometimes our family would set up a black jack table or some other kind of card game and it was just for fun.

But when I was in college, the kids introduced me to this game Texas Hold’em and I’d never really heard of it before. So as we talked about it, I asked them how to play and I read up on the rules and learned how to play. I quickly learned that how bad most of the players were because they just weren’t very aggressive. Because of the way that I was used to playing with the family and friends, aggression was my game and I found it to be a very successful approach. I deposited a couple of bucks online, and then I had a lot of success with my aggression there too.

PTR: What were the games like when you first started playing online?

Tri Nguyen: I guess it’s because a lot of the books at the time really taught the bare essentials, and how to play really tight, but I didn’t know about that at all. In fact, I didn’t even know that it was because of my aggression that I was beating people out of pots. It was just fun for me. So I began to work my way up to the biggest stakes, which at the time on Party Poker was the 5/10 game, and I did very well there until they opened the 10/20 game and I did well there too. Then in 2006 the UIGEA came along, and I backed away from the online game a bit. But I did well enough to buy a house for my parents, and I lived a pretty good lifestyle for a while. After the UIGEA though, I focused a little more on writing books, and published my first book “Let There Be Range” with Cole “CTS” South.

PTR: Is that when you made the transition to be a live player?

Tri Nguyen: Sort of, but it was short lived. In 2006 I was playing a local casino because I was starting to run pretty bad online. I couldn’t believe how many bad beats I was taking on Paradise Poker, and I played a little more live than online. I read something in Barry Greenstein’s “Ace on the River” that the highest game is usually the easiest game, and the second highest game is usually the toughest game, so I went to the casino to get into the biggest game that I could find. I bought in for just one buy-in, and proceeded to run really, really good and ended up winning a lot. From that session I just basically stayed there for around a month straight and used the roll to go back to play at some of the bigger games online. Now the only time that I really play live anymore is when I go to the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas.

PTR: You mentioned that when you first came into the game that you brought a real loose-aggressive style whereas most of your opponents were much tighter because of what they’d learned. When you look at the most successful high profile cash game players, they all really employ a much more loose-aggressive style as well. Do you have to employ that strategy to be really successful in this game anymore?

Tri Nguyen: I think that’s somewhat of a myth, that you have to fit into a certain mold of being tight-aggressive, or loose-aggressive in order to be a profitable player. The truth is, you can become a profitable player with any kind of style as long as you really learn to balance the range of your opponent. Whether your VPIP is 10% or 50%, if you know how to balance your ranges correctly, and tweak your range in certain spots, then you should be fine.  There’s a misconception that if you’re too loose that you can’t win, and that’s true to an extent. I mean, if you play too loose against a lineup of online superstars, you’re going to get hurt because everyone knows that you’re playing with such a wide range. But in a lot of games, you can get away with being recklessly loose-aggressive if that’s your game. You just need to work the tweaks out and figure out ways to cater to your game. People often ask me “what’s the correct style to play,” and the answer is always the same. “Play the style that you’re the most comfortable playing,” because you’re the one that’s going to ultimately be successful or unsuccessful with the style.

PTR: You’ve had a lot of your successes playing in Pot Limit Omaha. Most of the highest stakes games are played at PLO as opposed to No Limit Hold’em as well. Do you think that the best way to build an online bankroll is through PLO as opposed to NLH these days?

Tri Nguyen: I definitely think that you’ll make more money being a good PLO player than a NLHE player. There’s a lot of reasons why, but the big ones are that there are a lot of really good NLHE players out there now. There’s so much information about NLHE and so many books that have been written about the game, that its easy for players to pick up the game and learn ways to be above average there. But in PLO, the information is much more scarce and it makes it so much more valuable. There are just so many more complexities with the game, and the books that are out there on the subject are a lot about taking your game to the table to learn the game to help better understand its difficulties.

PTR: The forward in your newest book was written by recent inductee to the Poker Hall of Fame, Barry Greenstein. What was the motivation for documenting your journey to your first million dollars in earnings?

Tri Nguyen: The motivating factor comes from there just simply not being enough information out there on how to manage yourself after becoming a successful poker player. Anyone who’s been a winning poker player has seen their friends win big scores at tournaments, or have incredible sessions online or live and win tons of money, and then all of the sudden, there just not there anymore. Why? It makes me sad because a lot of these players could avoid being down and out if they simply managed their lives better and lived a much healthier lifestyle, or if they simply look for ways to help improve their game. I’m hoping that players that are the budding superstars of today, the online grinders that are 17 or 18 and have such tremendous talent, that they’re the ones that pick up this book and that they learn that once they hit their first big score, there are things that they have to do in order to avoid going broke themselves, and help them stay on top of the game.

Regarding Barry, I was honored to have him write the forward in the book, but even more so when he said that it was like his book “Ace on the River” but for the online generation. There’s a lot of similarities that you’ll see for the approach, but there are some inherent differences in online play as well. Like for example in “Ace on the River,” Barry writes about having a travel companion to ride along with him to basically keep him in check the entire time. Online players really don’t get that. But having him describe the book as an online version of his book was tremendously flattering.

PTR: Where can we go to pick up “How I Made My First Million in Poker?”

Tri Nguyen: If you’re interested in picking up a copy, you can visit my site on Daily Variance.com and find it there as well as our Webinar’s where we offer real time coaching sessions. The book will be released on December 15^th and will be $127.00, but you can pre-order your copy now, and save yourself 10% by using coupon code “PTR”. We’re so confident that you’ll find this a worthwhile and helpful book that we’re offering a 90-day money back guarantee on the book. So if you think that book isn’t helpful or that it wasn’t worth what you paid for us, just email us back and we’ll refund your money, with no questions asked. But we’re very confident that once you read it, you’re going to like it and will keep it in your library.

For weeks, the action at PokerStars seemed to be settling down. Ever since Viktor ‘Isildur1‘ Blom disappeared, the high-stakes action has been sporadic and, to railbirds’ chagrin, relatively cheaper. Most PLO games have not climbed above $50/100 and players seem to be content with multi-tabling at lower levels lately.

Tuesday was a day that broke the norm, however, as the $200/400 tables got into full swing after the day began with a session of 6-max $100/200 PLO.  Players such as PepperoniF, Jeans89, Vaga_Lion,  1-ronnyr3, and RefaelAmit got involved, but it was Garfield25, Ilari ‘Ilari FIN‘ Sahamies, and Fake Love888 who provided the real action once the games got serious.  It was not a terribly long session for these three, lasting less than 1,000 hands, but there was plenty of damage done within this short amount of time.

The main benefactor of the session was Garfield25, who lost over a half-million dollars to Ilari and Fakelove 888 in about three hours.  Here are some of the most notable hands from Tuesday’s games:

Ilari wins the biggest pot of the day after showing Garfield25 the nuts.

Garfield25 makes a bold call and scoops a 196k pot.

More good news for Ilari means more bad news for Garfield25.

Fake Love888 gets it all-in on the turn when he’s behind (but actually ahead).

Ilari gets runner-runnered in a 148k pot against Garfield.

On the first hand, Garfield25 actually held a queen high flush and didn’t believe the hyper-aggressive Ilari FIN, helping Ilari take down the biggest pot on PokerStars in the last thirty days.  After all was said and done, Ilari walked away from the tables with about $400,000 in 1,094 hands.  Fake Love888, a player from Monaco whom many speculate to be Patrik Antonius, also walked away with almost $400k for his efforts.  As you can see, it was quite a day of bankroll building and obliteration for the high-stakes community.

Will the action continue at this level?  It’s tough to say since, if Fake Love888 is Antonius, two of the best players in the world have just taken $800k out of their community’s wallets.  Hopefully they will put their newfound funds to work against each other in the coming days.  Railbirds can only hope…

What do you think about the session? Discuss the sessions further by heading over to our forums.

Familiar names top the Ultimate Grinders Leaderboard for the month of October as PokerStars and PokerStars.fr players dominated the leaderboards. Results for October 2011 UGL 200NL, 400NL and 600NL:

Lefou322 posted fantastic results in October, profiting $15,744 over almost 100k hands. While he has struggled at the tables in the past, hopefully Lefou322’s first UGL badge will be the boost he needs to get his PTR winnings back into the black. What?NOpair? followed up his runner-up finish in last month’s 200NL UGL race with a very solid fifth place finish. After making nearly $10,000 with a 3.68BB/100 winrate at 200NL this month, he has shown the ability to prosper in an increasingly difficult poker environment.

Full 200NL results

The 400NL leaderboard was filled with seasoned grinders in the month of October with the top three finishers having played over 9 million hands combined. Stars regulars Sphinx87 and Intensedawg both rebounded from recent downswings with very profitable October, making $18,500 and $18,213 respectively. However,they were no match for midstakes superstar Gogol’s Nose, who follows up his June performance with his second UGL badge. He won $23,692 with a very impressive winrate of 4.56, bringing his lifetime earnings up to $665,000. As one of the most consistent midstakes grinders in the world, it is time Gogol’s Nose and his nanonoko-like graph get some recognition.

Full 400NL results

Forhayley continued to tear up the midstakes cash games, making $16,000 more than the next best grinder at 600NL. He earned his third UGL badge in five months by making $38,610 over 56,682 hands at 600NL. Forhayley has certainly established himself as one of best midstakes regulars on Stars and I expect he’ll continue to be a force in the future. Relative newcomer marlow15 also deserves recognition for his runner-up finish. In many months, his $22,360 of profits would be enough to earn him a UGL badge. Though he has only played 641,000 hands, he has very consistent and impressive results, boasting a 5.07 BB/100 lifetime winrate. If he can sustain this winrate for a large volume of hands, Marlow15 will continue to be a factor in the monthly midstakes UGL races.

Full 600NL results

Follow all the action on the UGL Leaderboards.

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We've begun the process of awarding prizes and wanted to update you on our progress. We will be working together with PartyPoker to distribute prizes to the winners over the coming weeks. PTR will be awarding the PTR Premium subscriptions by November 15, while PartyPoker will be distributing the other prizes to the winners in four to six weeks.

Please note that your current PartyPoker account screen names are required so that PartyPoker can add eligible players to the freerolls. We've attemped to contact the users that have changed their screen names recently. Please check the email addresses used for your PTR account and contact us as soon as possible so we can enter you into the tournaments and distribute any prizes.

Freeroll Times Updated

The freeroll dates have been updated and the first two are in the PartyPoker lobby under Tournaments > Special. The dates of the freerolls are:

• PTR 4 Badge Freeroll: November 13 15:00EST (This is a correction from a previous post)
• PTR 8 Badge Freeroll: November 19 15:00EST
• PTR 12 Badge Freeroll: November 20 15:00EST

For clarification, if you've earned 8 badges during the challenge, you are entered to both the 4 and 8 badge freeroll. And if you are one of the dedicated few who earned all 12, you are eligible to play in all three!

Best of luck to all of the players!

Post any questions to our forums!