Antonius Poker Average ratng: 8,5/10 1811 votes


Patrik Antonius, 'Brad Pitt' of the poker world. Professional tennis player and coach turned model turned professional poker player. He's a man of few words but he sure knows how to play some great poker and he's considered one of the all-time greats by most poker enthusiast. At the same time, not that much is known about his approach to poker.

Patrik rarely talks about his poker strategy and in order to figure out what made it so successful we're going to take a look at some interesting hands from Antonius's career.

Play Patrik Antonius Pokeron an online casino where you play with your real money first when claiming a bonus. The goal of this strategy is to win a huge amount of money before you reach Patrik Antonius. Total life earnings: $220,842. Latest cash: $442 on 19-Sep-2019. Click here to see the details of Antonius Samuel's 121 cashes. Willem de Graaf is a former association football player who represented New Zealand at international level. De Graaf made his full All Whites debut in a 0–0 draw with New Caledonia on 25 July 1969,. Coming from Finland, Patrik Antonius has become one of the most feared poker players, especially in live and online cash games (source: partypoker.com) Born in Helsinki, Finland, on December 13, 1980, Patrik Antonius had his career goals set on a path quite different to that of a professional poker.

Cool, Calm and Collected

The first thing that comes to mind when we talk about Patrik Antonius is his commanding table presence. While it's not impossible to hear him chatting or even joking - especially in the company of good high stakes poker friends - most of the time Antonius is quiet, intimidating and almost unapproachable.

While there's no meanness to his demeanor it's not hard to imagine that the way he handles himself at a poker table combined with his fame and amazing results allowed him to see some free cards and cause some mistakes that other players wouldn't enjoy. In the context of a live game, the ice-man persona can be a real asset and greatly supplement to quality betting patterns.

Lastly, Patrik rarely shows anger and stays collected even in the face of bad beats that would cause lesser players to tilt.


Medium Strength Hands - The Key to Long-Term Profit

While we all tend to get excited about the biggest pots in poker history where players usually end up comparing the top portions of their range, medium and small pots are the real win rate builders. It's not that hard to play poker when you flop the goods, but it's much harder to ensure that you're not adding too many hands to the bottom of your range in certain spots (which is pretty much the worst thing you can do in poker from a game theory standpoint).

In this particular hand against Tony G, Patrik shows exactly how to play a medium strength hand. He skips a thin value bet - which would put him in many awkward spots by the river - instead going for a check/call ensuring that the opponent's range stays reasonably air-heavy. Turn call is much more difficult but since it doesn't make a lot of sense for Tony G to bet TX combos on the flop (other than ATs) Patrik avoids adding KQ to the bottom of his range and makes a very good call.

Protecting the Investment

Antonius is one of the players who like to use the straddle, but unlike many other live pros, he's perfectly aware of the dynamic that straddle creates. In this particular hand, Patrik correctly adjusts to the fact that a large amount of dead money combined with a perfect run out for a triple barrel makes Phil Laak much more likely to bluff than in similar spots unaffected by the straddle mechanic.

The call is even more impressive given the fact that the hand was 3-way on the flop which in theory should dissuade Laak from making a move, but Antonius was perfectly aware that in the context of a live game where players rarely get the opportunity to make a big play a pot that's inflated by the straddle is a perfect occasion for a bluff that few players can resist.

Again, Patrik avoids adding too many hands to the bottom of his range by calling with a hand that some other players would release on the turn and the way he handles himself through this juggernaut of a poker hand only adds to his cool demeanor that we mentioned before.

Punishing Heavily Unbalanced Plays

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In this little gem of a hand Patrik once again avoids adding too many hands to the bottom of his range in the spot that many other players would recognize as a trivial fold. Antonious has enough discipline not to make a random stab on the flop and turn with a marginal showdown value hand against multiple opponents.

Once the river hits and Patrik faces a strangely sized bet, instead of quickly releasing a marginal hand he figures out that thin value bets are practically impossible due to the sizing, regular value bets like Ax or even Kx would show aggression on one of the previous streets, there are no possible draws and therefore the only hand that makes sense for value is an unlikely pair of sixes. Assuming villain is capable of a bluff in this spot his range has to be heavily unbalanced towards air and therefore a very thin hero call with Q-high becomes a correct play in this unusual spot.

Omaha - The Biggest Game in Town

Lastly, when we talk about the strategy and success of Patrik Antonius it's impossible not to mention the game that allowed him to make copious amounts of money at the online tables and participate in many of the biggest pots ever played (staying on top of those more often than not).

While this iconic hand against Isildur1 simply boiled down to shipping the flop with second nuts plus backdoor redraw, what's more important is the fact that Patrik gave himself the opportunity to participate in such a monumental hand with his fearless yet highly intelligent game selection. Contrary to the approach that made Isildur1 high stakes story a flash in the pan Antonius wasn't blindly seating every other player imaginable and played against other greats of the game only when it made sense from the EV standpoint.

Patrik took full advantage of the high stakes online games of old and given the fact that pre-Black Friday reality of the biggest Full Tilt games is now just a distant memory Antonious ensured his spot in the online poker legacy.
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A lot has happened in the past five years in poker, including Patrik Antonius and Gus Hansen shifting into 'Old School' status. Or maybe they're still on the border. Either way, it was a treat for poker fans to see the two primarily high stakes cash game pros with plenty of live tournament success surface in Rozvadov for the World Series of Poker Europe last week to play in the $111,111 High Roller for One Drop.

Other recent changes in the game have been strategy shifting to focus on GTO, solvers and 'sims' as well as (seemingly) endless tanking that often includes a good deal of uncomfortable staring at opponents. While most would agree that the game is naturally getting more advanced and the average player has gotten much stronger than in years past, at what cost have some of these changes come to the game itself?

Antonius Weighs In

Antonius addressed this question to some degree in his conversation about modern poker with PokerNews' Julia Lee at King's Casino in Rozvadov.

'I'm personally not a fan of the way poker has evolved, how people slow the game down and it's a bit less gambling and less fun nowadays. People take it a little too serious in my opinion.'

Antonius thinks there are some things that would help the game to 'bring the more fun elements back and a bit more maybe social elements in the game also.'

'I think definitely the shot clock is going to be something that is going to be needed in the future because it's really painful nowadays to play a tournament.

'It's really painful nowadays to play a tournament.'

'It's the snowball effect because one or two players start slowing down and suddenly everybody is doing the same on the table.'

Antonius explained how that very thing happened during the One Drop in Rozvadov. He said they had a nice game on Day 1. 'Everybody was playing with a very good rhythm. Nobody was really taking a lot of time unless there was a big decision.'

Antonius noted that later in the day after dinner break, one or two new players came to the table, 'And suddenly every hand was five, seven minutes … A couple players started to play slow and everybody started to copy.

'It's modern poker but I don't think it's good for the poker. It's not good for the game, for the people. This is an enjoyable game. Everybody starts to play because it's a fun game. And you're trying to make money but it has become a little bit too serious in a certain way, I think.'

You can watch that interview below.

He's Not Alone

Antonius is definitely not the first nor the only high stakes reg complaining about the slowed pace of play. Specifically during the recent WSOPE high rollers, some other big names chimed in about the tanking problem and it was recent Poker Masters winner Steffen Sontheimer leading the charge.

Shotclocks... we need shotclocks in any highroller tournament. This tanking is killing the game. Wtf

— Steffen Sontheimer (@RunGo0seRun)

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Daniel Negreanu showed his support.

Preach brother. Preach. Good luck today. https://t.co/CDN5i2nLI8

— Daniel Negreanu (@RealKidPoker)

And the next response might get the attention of tournament organizers, if the previous complaints have not.

@RealKidPoker I pledge to not play any high roller tournaments that don't have a shot clock. A peaceful protest I h… https://t.co/V93RNF2S2o

— Bill Perkins (Guy) (@bp22)

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Bill Perkins not only pledged to not play in high rollers with no shot clock, but called others to action to follow him in his 'peaceful protest.' As the success of high roller events depends on the support of a relatively small, connected player pool, this type of Twitter post can have a lot of pull.

While many tours have adopted action clocks, like the World Poker Tour which began regularly implementing the clock in later levels of WPT Main Tour events this season, it is yet to be a standard in the industry.

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It seems that the answer to 'Is it time? Should the 'Action Clock' become standard in tournaments?' is becoming an emphatic yes, at least among the majority of high stakes players.

Patrick Antonius

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    Patrik AntoniusGus HansenBill PerkinsDaniel NegreanuSteffen Sontheimer

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    Daniel NegreanuGus HansenPatrik AntoniusBill PerkinsSteffen Sontheimer