Top 10 Online Poker Winners & Losers of 2013

Every year the high-stakes online poker games provide some of the best stories of the year.

This year didn’t disappoint with Niklas “Ragen70” Heinecker putting on one of the most dominant performances in years while Gus Hansen imploded in spectacular fashion.

2013 also marked a pivotal shift in how online poker results are recorded.

The excellent HighStakesDB allowed players to opt out for the first time ever and numerous players decided to regain their anonymity including Alex “PostflopAction” Kostritsyn and Kyle “Cottonseed1” Hendon who were both crushing mid-way through 2013.

That means that this year’s results are missing some of the biggest winners and losers.

Top 10 Online Poker Winners in 2013

German Niklas “ragen70” Heinecker was simply off-the-charts in 2013. He crushed nearly every big session he played and ended up finishing with an astounding $6.3 million profit.

To put things in perspective Heinecker nearly doubled Ben “Sauce123” Sulsky’s high-stakes leading $3.5 million in 2012.

Heinecker easily recorded one of the most profitable years in the history of online poker.

Once you include the $4.5 million he made playing the live tournament circuit, Heinecker suddenly appears to be one of the richest players in the game with over $10 million profit in 2013.

Ben Tollerene would have likely taken top spot if it wasn’t for Heinecker’s ridiculous run. The underrated Tollerene continues to consistently grind out huge profits from his poker pad in Vancouver.

Some of the other interesting winners in 2013 included Hac “trex313” Dang. The Dang brothers have started a restaurant back home but Hac apparently found the time to travel and play some online poker. Picked up $1.8 million. No big deal.

Finally Patrik Antonius should have always stuck to his FinddaGrind alias. After several losing years on his “Patrik Antonius” account, the Finn switched back to his old handle and won $1.7 million in 2013.

• 1. Niklas “ragen70” Heinecker: +$6.3 million
• 2. Ben “Bttech” Tollerene: +$2.9 million
• 3. Alex “IReadYrSoul” Millar: +$2 million
• 4. Odd_Oddsen: +$1.9 million
• 5. Hac “trex313” Dang: +$1.8 million
• 6. No_Ola: +$1.8 million
• 7. FinddaGrind: +$1.7 million
• 8. Tight-Man1: +$1.4 million
• 9. proudlikeagoat: +$1.3 million
• 10. Follow The Hawk: +$985,000

Honorable mentions:

• Tom “durrrr” Dwan, who has been criticized for not playing as much online poker these days actually recorded 68,144 hands and profited $750,000 so he can apparently still hang with the big boys, as long as it’s not Dan “jungleman12” Cates.
• Viktor “Isildur1” Blom finished with a $586k profit, which seems good until you realize he was up over $5 million in the early stages of 2013. At least he didn’t go into the red.

Top 10 Online Poker Losers in 2013

As Heinecker soared, Gus Hansen fell like a lead brick in 2013. You would have been better off buying BlackBerry stock than a piece of the Great Dane this year.

Hansen plummeted to an eye-popping loss of $8.4 million in 2013. It’s one of the biggest losses in the history of online poker.

It’s tough to see a bona fide icon of the game like Gus Hansen struggle like he has this year, which was why we made it the single worst poker moment of 2013. Now is the time for Hansen to rebound with $10 million profit in 2014 and show us all how it’s done.

While not quite in the same category as Hansen, the account MalACEsia took a huge beating in 2013 to the tune of -$3.7 million. Widely rumored to be one of the Malaysian businessmen who play in Macau, the account can likely handle a bit of damage.

Perhaps the most surprising player in the top 10 biggest losers this year is Phil “Polarizing” Ivey who lost -$2.4 million.

It’s rumored that prior to 2013 Ivey had never recorded a losing year of online poker. Despite the loss Ivey remains the biggest all-time winner online with nearly $20 million in profit before the original Full Tilt Poker closed down.

Ben “Sauce1234” Sulsky also recorded a surprisingly off year, losing $1.4 million. He should be OK considering he won $3.5 million in 2012.

• 1. Gus Hansen: -$8.4 million
• 2. MalACEsia: -$3.7 million
• 3. samrostan: -$3.4 million
• 4. Phil “Polarizing” Ivey: -$2.4 million
• 5. punting-peddler: -$1.7 million
• 6. Ben “Sauce1234” Sulsky: – $1.4 million
• 7. patpatpanda: -$1.3 million
• 8. Scott “mastrblastr” Seiver: -$1.2 million
• 9. Rui Cao: -$1 million
• 10. davin77: -$1 million