Patrik Antonius

Patrik Antonius was born in Helsinki, Finland in December 1980. Before taking up professional poker, he was a tennis player, tennis coach and model. Early in his professional poker career Antonius became part of the “Circle of Outlaws” where he was mentored by the poker professional Marcel Luske. He later received mentoring from Jennifer Harman. Antonius’s spouse is Maya Geller, with whom he has one child. In the poker scene, Antonius is known by the nicknames PA, Black Lotus and The Finn.

Antonius first became well-known on the professional poker scene when he achieved two finishes near to the final table at the European Poker Tour (EPT) and World Poker Tour (WPT) in early 2005. He achieved a 12th place finish at the EPT PokerStars Caribbean Adventure and a 15th place finish at the WPT Bay 101 Shooting Stars event only two months later.

Antonius achieved a money finish in three of the events of the 2005 World Series of Poker (WSOP) event. First, he achieved a 3rd place finish at the EPT Main Event in Barcelona. Second, he came 1st at the EPT event held in Baden bei Wien, scooping a total of €288,180 in prize money after beating Gunnar Østebrød. Finally, he finished in 2nd place at the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic event held in Las Vegas, Nevada. His 2nd place finish granted him prize money of $1,046,470.

In the summer of 2006, Antonius placed 9th in the WSOP $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. event. This netted him $205,920, the biggest cash prize he achieved that year. In 2007, he entered into numerous WSOP tournaments but only managed a money finish at the World Championship of Pot Limit Omaha where he placed 3rd, winning $311,394.

This constituted his 9th WSOP cash win and increased his total WSOP winnings to $569,964. Antonius was denied entry to the 2009 WSOP Main Event due to the popularity of the event. As of 2010, Antonius had 13 WSOP cashes to his name, accounting for $774,046 in earnings.

Antonius has thrice featured on NBC’s Poker After Dark. First, he finished in 2nd place to his old mentor, Jennifer Harman. Second, he finished 1st place against Brad Booth. Third, he finished in 2nd place to Johnny Chan.

He has also featured in high profile online poker tournaments including the Full Tilt Poker $25,000 buy-in Heads-Up Pot Limit Omaha Championship where he finished in 2nd place, winning $320,000. In online poker cash games, Antonius can be described as a heads-up specialist. He was played Full Tilt Poker under the guise of the screen names Luigi66369, CryMeRiver9 and Finddagrind.

During his early poker career, he played on numerous poker networks with the screen names I_knockout_U, try_hrdr_fish and -ANTONIUS-. However, since he became a “Team Full Tilt” member, he reverted to playing under his real name. Antonius was previously a member of a team associated with Martinspoker.com.

Antonius is a regular player in the Big Game, a Bellagio high-stakes cash game. He has also appeared on three seasons of GSN’s High Stakes Poker where he was jointly responsible for the show’s $998,800 pot – the largest ever pot. Antonius was the winner of the largest pot in the history of online poker, netting $1,356,946 against Isildur1 in November 2009.