Thu, 12/30/2010 – 02:43 – PokerPages Staff

Longtime nosebleed regulars, Patrik Antonius and ‘IHateJuice’, continued their competitive rivalry on Monday evening with a thrilling session of $3,000/$6,000 Heads Up No limit Hold’em action.

‘IHateJuice’ dominated the first exchange as he stormed to an upswing of $241,000, but Antonius responded with a lucrative victory of his own to completely erase those losses and more.

The lively session continued with a number of huge pots being downed by both players before ‘IHateJuice’, who suggested the creation of the $3,000/$6,000 table to Phil Ivey last month, took the Finn to the cleaners for almost $500,000.

However, the talented Finn bounced back once again to reduce those losses with a late surge and ended the evening with marginal losses of $73,000.

Team PokerStars Sponsored Pro ‘Isildur1′ continued his sparkling form on the world’s biggest online poker site with a commanding $25/$50 Pot Limit Omaha victory over ‘PeperoniF.’

The unknown Swede finished with profits of $60,000. ‘Urindanger’ (+$76,000), ‘IHateJuice’ (+$73,000) ‘airic1400′ (+$40,000) and ‘URnotIndanger2′ (+$33,000) were the other big winners on a busy night of action on the virtual felt.

2010 World Series of Poker Europe bracelet winner Gus Hansen, who posted profits of $71,000 over the weekend, dropped $72,000 in various high stakes cash games. ‘O Fortuna PLS’ (-$59,000) and Rui Cao (-$22,000) also struggled to make an impact.

Hansen is currently down $1.6 million for 2010 and it is highly unlikely that he will reduce that deficit before the year is out. However, he will not be the biggest loser, as Brian Townsend (-$2.5 million), Ilari ‘Ziigmund’ Sahamies (-$2 million) and ‘cadillac1944′ (-$1.8 million) round out the top three for the calendar year.

For more information about the leading names in online poker, visit the PokerPages Popular Players section.

Wed, 12/22/2010 – 23:10 – PokerPages Staff

Ilari ‘Ziigmund’ Sahamies returned to form on Monday evening after dominating several $300/$600 Pot Limit Omaha sessions on the virtual felt. ‘Ziigmund’ finished the evening $119,000 in the black to arrest his recent run of downswings.

The online sensation downed a pot worth $136,674 after completing a full house on the river against nosebleed regulars Di ‘Urindanger’ Dang and ‘Rumprammer.’

‘Ziigmund’ raised to $3,600 from the big blind and his opponents called. A flop of Ah-Qs-8s prompted Dang to check and Sahamies led out for $13,780. ‘Rumprammer’ then jammed for $26,195 and Dang check raised to $107,085. ‘Ziigmund’ completed.

The trio had each hit a set on the flop but ‘Ziigmund’ had his opponents covered with Aces. The turn and river drew air for ‘Rumprammer’ and Dang and ‘Ziigmund’ snared the pot with his boat.

Patrik Antonius took the crown as the biggest winner of the weekend after seven lucrative sessions. Antonius tabled trip deuces against Dan ‘jungleman12′ Cates to take down a hand worth $226,000 before spiking a rivered set of Aces against long running challenger ‘IHateJuice’ for a $96,000 pot.

Antonius’ profits of $332,663 placed him ahead of ‘luckexpress10′ (+$143,992) and Ziigmund (+$119,0000). The renowned Phil Ivey (+$83,981) rounded out the top four.

Dan Cates (-$249,376) was the biggest loser. The Durrrr Challenger has seen his 2010 profits drop from over $5 million to $4.76 million in recent weeks. However, those figures are still good enough to make him the highest earner for the calendar year.

For more information about the biggest names in online poker visit the PokerPages Popular Players section.