Big-Game Hunter Patrik Antonius

Whether in a high-stakes cash game or vying for a world championship title, Patrik Antonius is a powerful presence at the poker table. He sits very still and soldier straight. Then, like a black panther stalking unwary prey, he eases chips into the pot - always taking the time to decipher each situation, regardless of his card values. Ready to pounce, ready to trap, he revels in the metagame and more often than not takes down elephant-sized pots.

Yet, Antonius possesses not a single gold bracelet, despite coming close with a third-place finish in the 2007 World Series of Poker $10,000 pot-limit Omaha championship. However, his peers tout him as being one of the best all-around players in the world. Why?

Simple. Antonius continues to be one of the most consistent winners in the biggest cash games the world has to offer, live and online. Many poker egos keep score by the wrist bling and major tournament titles. But the big-game hunters keep score by the only bottom line that counts on a spreadsheet: cold hard cash.

Cash is king. Teetering and crumbling greenback skyscrapers on the felt draw more rubberneckers than a 10-car pileup. The public's fascination with GSN's High Stakes Poker, where Antonius is a regular fixture, serves as proof. At only 27, how did he find himself in such an exalted position, playing for millions of dollars and being mentioned in the same breath as Brunson, Ivey, Greenstein, and Reese? Antonius' explanation pulls no punches: "Work ethic."

The key to Antonius' metamorphosis into one of poker's most feared adversaries is tenacious dedication to developing both his mind and his body. From his first days in the game, Antonius approached poker as an athlete trains for Olympic gold: discipline, patience, and focus. These are the virtues that have elevated his life beyond his humble beginnings in Helsinki, Finland.

"My family was poor," said Antonius. "You learn that only hard work makes results. You learn discipline when you train as an athlete at a young age. You also have to be very humble and respectful. And you also learn to lose gracefully."

Since childhood, defeat of any kind motivated Antonius to push harder, learn more. As a teen, tennis was his game, and the career path he hoped to follow. Each day after school, he rushed to the club for practice. But on many afternoons after tennis, a five-card stud poker game would break out, and at 14 he found himself winning or losing $50 a day at poker and having the time of his life.

After graduation, Antonius suffered a serious back injury that derailed his dreams of a career in tennis. Poker became his obsession over the next few years, a game he vowed to master. He whet his appetite for action by clawing his way up the limit poker stakes, amassing a bankroll with sheer aggression and a prescient intuition.

Patrik would burst onto the international tournament scene in 2005, with wins at the Ladbrokes Scandinavian Poker Championships and the EPT Baden Classic. At the end of the year, he finished second for more than $1 million in the World Poker Tour Five-Diamond World Poker Classic at a star-studded final table that included Doyle Brunson, Phil Laak, J.J. Liu, Darrell "Gigabet" Dicken, and eventual winner Rehne Pedersen. Antonius came within one card of the championship, but the world would hear more from the talented Fin.

In the past two years, Antonius has been a regular in the "big game" at Bellagio. Even though his experience lay solely with pot-limit Omaha, and limit and no-limit hold'em, his innate skills crossed over into any game he played.

"Patrik is a ferocious player," shared Barry Greenstein. "His results demonstrate clearly that betting skill is much more important than hand selection, which allowed him to hold his own against the top players in the world. This bought him time as he learned the technical side of the various forms of poker we play in the big game."

But last year Antonius struggled, online and live. He plummeted down the treacherous roller coaster of variance for the first time, experiencing multiple losing months in a row. He found himself on the dark side of luck, making bad loans, losing cash by backing a stable of players, and dealing with the day-to-day stress of having a baby with his fiancé, Maya. But he never doubted his talents or his fiercely competitive heart, a heart that races a little bit faster when everything's on the line.

Antonius invited Card Player to rail his live play in the big game during the 2007 WSOP, as well as online while kicking back in his Las Vegas home office. The conversation continued throughout the fall, and ended in a limousine on his 27th birthday on the way to the main event of the WPT Five-Diamond World Poker Classic.

Craig Tapscott: You had a crazy year. It was rumored that you had some tough runs in the high-stakes games online and live.

Patrik Antonius: I lost a lot of money after my daughter came, and a bit before, as well. I played poker for three-and-a-half years straight with no losing months. I just put way too much pressure on myself.

CT: Did things change after the baby was born?

PA: I'm so happy now, that's the difference. My worst fear was that I would have an unhealthy baby. Mila Jolie is perfect, so beautiful.

CT: When did things start to turn around for you?

PA: At the end of last summer. Last fall I traveled a lot in Europe, played online, and did extremely well - better than I could have imagined. It also started to change when I decided to move my family to Monaco. I'll spend half the year there and half the year in the U.S.

CT: What did you learn during your rough patch last year?

PA: I learned to pay attention to things that are more important than poker: my daughter, my fiancé, and enjoying my life.

CT: Let's talk about your poker beginnings.

PA: In our home games, I started to beat my friends very badly; I got all the money (laughing). Then I started to travel to the casinos to learn. I never read any books. This was in 2002.

CT: Did you continue with school?

PA: I went to Italy to study at a polytechnic school for three months. I went through much of my bankroll for expenses and didn't play poker for three months. Then a friend of mine (known as Zigmund online) introduced me to Internet poker. I put $200 on one site and started to play $1-$2 pot-limit Omaha. I turned that money into $20,000 in two months. It was then I decided that I was going to be a professional poker player.

CT: Why do you think you did so well online from the start?

PA: Well, I still didn't know how to play that well, but other people were just so bad. I played so overaggressively at the beginning that it was a very good way to learn the game.

CT: How so?

PA: If you've learned to play tight from reading all of the proper books, that's your game. Then it's hard to learn how to adjust your style and loosen up, to start to play "bad" hands. If you're a very loose player, you just need to play better starting hands. I learned to adjust and also didn't bluff as much. That's how I improved.

CT: Can you share the process of your development?

PA: It's better that you figure out everything on your own. Building memory was a major key, because I have always played against the same people most of the time. It works better in no-limit hold'em and pot-limit Omaha. I thought, "Next time, if I do things like this, like bet out on this kind of board, he will think I have nothing. I'm going to bet weak, check-call the flop and bet the turn, because he'll bluff me with nothing."

CT: You approached the game with the discipline of an athlete, always working on your weaknesses and leading with your strengths.

PA: That is how I built the foundation of my game, playing 14 hours per day, seven days a week. I played every day online and live. The year 2003 was the breakthrough year for me.

CT: What else changed to enable you to compete with more seasoned players?

PA: I began to think deeper about the game and started to realize what poker is all about. If I had played no-limit hold'em from the start, I would have reached that point earlier, and started to think more creatively - because in no-limit, you have to make the money with no cards, in my opinion.

CT: When was your first trip to the United States?

PA: In 2003, I traveled to Danville, Virginia, to play tennis for a Finnish sports director friend and also to learn English and study. I knew when I went there that I was going to be a poker player. Some days I went to the computer room and played a few hours online. I won nine out of 10 times I played, mostly $50-$100 limit, and $15-$25 pot-limit Omaha.

CT: Why do you think your game improved so quickly?

PA: This is what I did. A long time ago, the best players online had to play pretty small, because the biggest games dealt were $30-$60 and $50-$100 limit hold'em. It enabled me to play against the very best. I played just because I wanted to learn how they beat me. Then, suddenly, I just started to beat them. I had learned how they played. It was a cheap lesson as far as I was concerned. Nowadays, if you want to play against the best players, you have to play $1,000-$2,000. That makes it a more expensive education.

CT: When did you start to focus on tournaments?

PA: I mainly played in tournaments for a holiday and to travel to warm spots and get out of Finland. In January 2005, I went to the Bahamas for my second WPT PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. I finished in 12th place.

CT: Do you find your athletic background an asset?

PA: If you're in good shape, it's obvious that the mental and physical go hand in hand.

CT: It's an obvious edge for you, especially during long tournament days.

PA: Yes. I kind of consider myself the new generation for poker of the young, athletic players. If you're in great shape, you can focus all the time. Poker is a mind game, too. I found that the better shape I'm in, the stronger my feelings and instincts are. I believe that you can develop your instincts if you pay attention. You're going to pick up a lot of stuff if you're very aware and awake. I've always had such strong feelings, but it took a couple of years for me to know what the feelings meant and how to interpret them.

CT: What do you think of the growth of poker in Europe?

PA: All over Europe, poker is so popular. People want to travel, and all of those tournaments are in beautiful places. It's a different poker community there. I find it very nice and friendly, and the average age on the tour is 24. Gus Hansen is the senior citizen, like Doyle Brunson is in the USA (laughing).

CT: Your breakthrough in the U.S. came during the WPT Five-Diamond World Poker Classic in 2005. Some people thought you were rude to Doyle Brunson during one hand.

PA: I'm glad I can clear that up. When I watched it afterward, I felt very embarrassed, and my English was not too good at the time. The thing is, I was so shocked and surprised at how he played this one hand. Also, I was too drunk. I wasn't drunk when we started the final table, but they kept giving me gin and tonics all the time. I never meant to say anything disrespectful to Doyle.

CT: Speaking of Mr. Brunson, I heard of a quote somewhere from Doyle: "I would swim across a river to play with Patrik Antonius."

PA: I don't know where that came from (laughing), because he never wants to play me heads up in Bobby's Room, so I don't know what he's talking about. But I'm ready to play Doyle any game, for any amount of money, if he would like. Doyle is a legend and I have the greatest respect for him. It's just a challenge I'm putting out there.

CT: You dived right into the rotation of games at Bellagio.

PA: When I started, all I thought I was good at was pot-limit Omaha, and no-limit and limit hold'em. But we played like 15 games sometimes. I started Omaha eight-or-better at $2,000-$4,000, and stud games, triple draw, deuce-to-seven, and other games, I just never played. Some of the games, I didn't even know the rules. Playing is how I learned. I think if you really want to learn, you have to play with the best people and remember their hands and how they played them. Surprisingly, I don't have a single favorite game anymore.

CT: Do you have a particular strategy in the big game?

PA: I'm kind of tight and solid, but I definitely prefer it when it's a shorthanded game. With a full ring, I get bored easily. One time, I managed to lose a ton of money in only one-and-a-half hours in one session in the big game. It was when $150,000 was the cap for each pot. I lost every hand no matter what I had. Some players will say that I'm so lucky. I don't know what to say.

CT: Do you ever tilt badly?

PA: A few years ago, the games were easier. I never had more than two losing days straight, so it never put me in a bad frame of mind. Last spring and early summer, it was very different. Look at the wall over there. [In Patrik's home office] You can see the damage from my fists, along with a few broken mouses. I broke my keyboard once. That's not normal. That's not me. I needed to relax. I took things too seriously when so many things went wrong at the same time last year. Yet, the confidence in my game was always there, regardless. I think I'm one of the top players, and I can compete with anyone.

CT: How has the game changed for you over the last few years?

PA: The players are so good nowadays. I improved so fast a few years ago, but I'm still always working on my game. I know that I can raise my game a couple of levels higher, but I don't need to do it, as it would be too much at the moment versus most players. At the moment, I'm playing pretty straightforward poker for me. I don't need to do too much extra stuff, because people give their money to me.

CT: What elements do players need to master to become a great player?

PA: It's very hard if you have no mathematics or gambling background. You need to know your odds and be a competitive person, as well. And you have to love the game, really have a passion for it. And a lot of players are not open-minded. Most of all, you need to learn to put yourself in your opponent's head. That's a very important key.

CT: Is it a conscious choice of yours to be so still and deliberate at the table?

PA: The thing is, so many times I have no idea what to do in a situation. I need to take time to think about and feel what is going on, but 95 percent of the time, I know in the first four seconds what I'm going to do. I take the same amount of time in every hand. Many times I know what I should do, but then there's this feeling when I'm shuffling my chips, I get a little more sense of what is going on. If I rush, I lose that feeling.

CT: Do you have goals to win the main event or an armful of bracelets?

PA: It would be nice to have all the titles. But I don't play tournaments for the money; it's more the honor that I want to achieve. I want to win a very respected tournament like the H.O.R.S.E. event, or a big-field event with the best in the world. I still have bigger goals in cash games. I think GSN's High Stakes Poker is the best poker show. I want to be remembered as one of the best cash-game players to have ever played the game, not as a player who won a few tournaments - because more and more people are realizing how much they depend on luck.

CT: What does the future hold for Patrik Antonius?

PA: Poker is in my blood. I'll play as long as I love playing; it's a competitive thing. Once again, I feel very lucky and am happy that I have this gift. I've pledged to give 20 percent of my tournament winnings to charity this year. But the number one thing in my life is that I want to enjoy my family, and be healthy. I take poker too seriously sometimes. My new thing is golf. I tend to be a perfectionist. I know that if I put time into golf, I'll improve fast. All I know is, I don't want to be a loser at golf, especially to Phil Ivey (laughing).