Finnish poker pro Sami Kelopuro emerged with over $1.3 million in a single cash game session on partypoker.
Nicknamed “LarsLuzak,” the experienced gambler discussed the experience on his blog on the Finnish-language website, Pokerisivut, recalling how incredible it was to see his unknown opponent keep on reloading for $20,000 at the $100/$200 Pot-Limit Omaha table.
partypoker froze the $1.404 million total he ended the session with for two and a half weeks while it probed the incident but eventually gave Kelopuro the green light to claim it.
Rob Yong, a partypoker partner and owner of the Dusk Till Dawn casino, spoke of that particular incident on Joe Ingram’s Poker Life podcast. During the talk, which lasted two hours, he talked about how the player who lost $1.3 million to Kelopuro also previously won that very same amount at the partypoker casino.
The disclosure came as part of a discussion regarding high stakes online poker players. Ingram queried Yong about the call to soon necessitate high stakes players to utilize their real names at the partypoker tables.
Yong said that the idea actually came from high stakes players and that there are so few high stakes players on partypoker that there was little risk for damage to come to the site, in the first place.
Yong also said that high stakes players are not really considered a priority for partypoker since they contribute very little to the rake compared to low stakes players as a proportion of their average pot. The money that high stakes players lose, Yong said, is just withdrawn by the winners, rather than getting re-circulated through the website.
Yong used Kelopuro’s session as an example, saying, “The guy didn’t lose $1.3 million…the guy won $1.3 million on the casino on partypoker and lost $1.3 million to LarsLuzak.”
Before his concise illustration, Yong said that partypoker could shut all the high stakes games down and become more profitable.
“Most of the people who are actually big losers on high stakes are either a) playing too high or b) would have been playing on the casino products or playing on the spins,” Yong stated.
“So high stakes is a loser for the site and if high stakes players really want to moan and stamp their feet, I’d happily say I have no interest in high stakes business, even though I’m a high stakes player myself.”
The core business of partypoker, Yong explained, is the “grassroots” or low stakes player. He actually went on and expressed disgust with high stakes players, stressing that he and his friends fall into that category. Yong said that high stakes players think they should dictate poker room policy when, in his belief, most of them are “bumhunters.”
However, Yong clarified that he has no plans on getting rid of high stakes games on the site. He considers the high stakes games part of partypoker’s marketing.
