Born in Vantaa, Finland, the much revered Patrik Antonius can certainly be considered as one of the superstar poker players of all time. Just to put this into perspective, if you are 21 years old or younger, then Patrik had played a poker hand before you even saw the light of day – having started at age 11, Patrik is very far from new to the poker scene.

Patrik comes from a very modest family, his father having been a bread deliverer and his mother a day-care centre worker. Patrik himself has worked as a waiter, door-to-door salesmen, mover, factory worker, and even a model! The financial hardships that Patrik has known have made him very grateful for what he has today.

Patrik, aka “I knockout u” or “Finddagrind”, has had a love for poker for as long as he can remember. A relatively serious back injury at the age of 15 obliged him to take a break from tennis, arguably his favourite sport, and resulted in him playing poker intensively with his buddies at the tennis club. Often they would play the whole night through, returning home only before their parents woke up. Until that age, having won a dollar would have made a great day for Patrik, but then things changed when the stakes got a lot higher, reaching $50 buy-ins.

At the age of 18, Patrik played in his first live Texas Hold’em tournament, in the only casino in Finland where playing it was legal, Casino Helsinki. As most of his experience had been with Pot Limit Omaha, this was a new and challenging experience for him. Nevertheless, the Poker Gods had spoken, and he turned his $25 buy-in into $260. He continued to play in Casino Helsinki for another two years without much success, having regularly drained his bankroll.

Poker was always his passion, but his real dream was to be a professional tennis player. During his national service at the army which was mandatory, he had been allowed to play tennis every day. But then he suffered another injury, imposing yet another setback on his dreams of threatening the net and striving for the perfect backhand.

Shortly after that, in the fall of 2002 Patrik Antonius decided to take a completely different route by going to Italy for a 3-month culinary internship during which he worked in a variety of Italian restaurants. He took that time as a break from poker. Then in January 2003 he returned to his home country, where he continued his studies at the Helsinki Polytechnic Stadia. At this point he resumed playing poker and this time he invested $200 into online poker. He then began to play more seriously and achieved the impressive result of multiplying his bankroll by 100, transforming his original $200 into a whopping $20,000. Not a negligible feat by any account. After this great accomplishment, Patrik realized it was time to go pro, and no more than a year and a half later Patrik was considered to be one of the top online poker players in Europe.

2005 proved to be the most eventful year of his career. Antonius started raking in the chips and cash, tournament after tournament. He took down the Ladbrokes Scandinavian Poker Championships for $66k, placed 3rd in the European Poker Tour at Barcelona for $340k and settled for 2nd place in the World Poker Tour at the Bellagio for just over a million dollars. More notable wins included finishing 9th in the WSOP 2006 $50k, taking down a H.O.R.S.E. event for $205k and a 3^rd place in the 2007 World Championship PLO event for $311K. More recently he finished in 2^nd place in the $250 super high roller event, cashing an impressive $1,200,000.

When it comes to finding out exactly how much Patrik has made, you may face some difficulties. In fact, Patrik is not only reserved about how much money he has made, but does not seem to even care that much about it. When asked how much money he had, he once responded,

“I don’t even know how much I have.  One time I counted and was 2 million off”.

Patrik currently resides in Monte Carlo and he says that now his main goal in life is to lead a healthy lifestyle and to spend as much time as possible with family.