As the year comes to a close we reported yesterday that Nicklas ‘ragen70’ Heinecker is the year’s biggest online cash game winner with $5.75m in winnings. It’s an incredible haul for the German but poker, as we all know, is a zero-sum game. For everyone that wins a huge sum of cash, somebody else is losing that same huge amount.
Since 2007 one player in particular has been consistently donating to the bank accounts of Heinecker, Ivey and the rest. His name is Gus Hansen. The Full Tilt Poker pro is losing a remarkable $8.58m online in 2013. It takes his total estimated online poker losses to $15m over the past seven years. Despite his great efforts – Gus has played more hands this year than any other notable pro except for Viktor Blom – the Great Dane just can’t seem to crack the online nosebleeds.
While Hansen’s inclusion in the list of top money losers may not come as a huge surprise, two players who usually crush the games do make an unlikely appearance. Phil Ivey, now playing as ‘Polarized’ after the closure of the original Full Tilt Poker in the wake of Black Friday, is currently losing $2.43m on the year. Prior to 2013 he had been the man to beat at all games online, from NLHE to mixed games, and has estimated all-time winnings of over $19m online, making him the biggest winner ever.
The second surprise is seeing Ben ‘Sauce1234’ Sulsky on the list after posting current losses of $1.4m. Sulsky is very highly regarded amongst his fellow professionals and in a recent exclusive interview with PokerPlayer.co.uk Daniel Negreanu singled out the young American as one of the toughest pros he has ever played with.
Here are the top ten losing online cash game players in 2013…
[table id=15 /]
For more great poker content, get the latest issue of PokerPlayer magazine on iTunes here.
