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Trueteller and Isildur1 Among Players Up Over $1 Million in High Stakes Online Action

Trueteller and Isildur1 Among Leaders

Timofey Kuznetsov, aka “Trueteller”, is presently the high stakes king is 2017. Through September 21, he has amassed $1.47 million in cash game earnings over at PokerStars. Unlike many players, Trueteller has managed to stay in the black the entire year.

He caught fire early in the year, earning over $467k in January alone. He grew those earnings up over $600k by late March before hitting a rough patch that saw him drop over $500,000 through the first half of April.

From late April through mid-May, Trueteller dominated the high stakes world, moving past the $1 million mark. He hovered around the $1 million mark until around September 10th. Since then, he’s crushed to the tune of $450,000 to move into the overall lead.

Right behind him is “BERRI SWEET” with $1.4 million in earnings. BERRI SWEET started the year off somewhat slowly but was up $191k heading into May. The PLO specialist then went on a couple of heaters with the biggest coming in June through early July. He amassed almost $800k in earnings during that period.

At his peak, BERRI SWEET was up $1.56 million, but he’s given some back in September but is still just a good session away from jumping into first.

The only other person with more than $1 million in earnings so far in 2017 is Viktor Blom, better known as “Isildur1“. Blom skipped the World Series of Poker this year and instead focused on high stakes cash games online. This would prove profitable as he went from being down about $5,000 in late May to being up as much as $1.75 million during WSOP season.

Of course, anyone that has followed Blom knows that he’s prone to downswings and he did drop over $750k by the end of WSOP season. Since that time, Blom has been up as much as $1.9 million but also suffered some big losses that brought him back down the $1 million mark.

A couple of recent winning sessions has him sitting at $1.13 million in profits on the year. The question now is whether he will hold onto those earnings, go on another heater and challenge the $2 million mark, or lose it all.

Ravenswood13 and ActionFreak Only Other Players Over $500k in Earnings

At this point, the only other players with over a half million in earnings is Carlo van Ravenswoud aka “Ravenswood13” and “ActionFreak.” Through March, Ravenswood13 was dominating the high stakes world and by mid-April peaked at nearly $800k in earnings.

He hit a rough patch in late-April and by mid-May dropped about half of those earnings. Since that time, he’s been steadily rebuilding and is presently up $754,342.

ActionFreak is a player most probably haven’t heard of and that’s because he’s been steadily building his bankroll this year without any real “monster” days. His largest single day score at any point has been $70k.

However, the key to his success has been the lack of any significant downswings. His largest downswing to this point was a $70k dip in early August. However, he erased that loss in a single day and has been growing his bankroll steadily since.

What’s perhaps the most impressive thing about ActionFreak’s run is that he’s doing this in PLO. PLO is a highly volatile game where multiple $100k swings aren’t uncommon. Somehow, he’s managed massive downswings to this point. If he can continue to do so, there’s no reason to believe he will make over $1 million by year’s end.

Supernova9, Lrslzk and Bill Perkins Among Biggest Losers

With multiple players up over $1 million this year, you’d expect multiple players down seven figures as well. However, that hasn’t happened this year. Dani “supernova9” Stern is 2017’s biggest loser thus far, down $777,373.

Sami “LrsLzk” Kelopuro is also having a tough year. He hasn’t been profitable since the WSOP and is presently down $625,530.

The online poker community loves Bill Perkins, but not because of his prop bets. He is presently one of the games biggest fish. “Gastrader” has dropped $517,020 so far this year. Players are eagerly awaiting his next Streamboat so they can improve their income streams.

Of course, there’s over three months left in the year and fortunes can change dramatically. At this pace, we should have multiple players finish up over $1 million. This is a welcome change from last year where only one player cracked 7 figures.

While high stakes online poker has become tougher to beat, it is not impossible. The difference is that many high stakes pros either have transitioned to live poker or have abandoned PokerStars due to player reward changes.

It’s also interesting to see what other sites will do to capitalize on this trend. Partypoker and 888poker have been making strides in signing big names to their brands and one hopes that this eventually leads to more high stakes action on those sites.

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