Dan Cates Is the Year's Biggest Online Winner; Gus Hansen Drops $5.8 Million
It’s official. Dan “jungleman12” Cates finished as 2014’s biggest online winner with $2,805,751 in winnings on Full Tilt Poker. Cates actually won more than that as he managed to win $631,288 on PokerStars to bring his total winnings up to $3,437,039. Cates managed to fend off Mikael “punting-peddler” Thuritz, who made a late push to finish as the year’s second-biggest online winner with $2,572,989 in profit.
Cates’ combined winnings were quite a bit lower than 2013’s biggest winner, Niklas “ragen70” Heinecker, who won $6,190,599. Speaking of the German, he opted out of long-term tracking in 2014, so we’re not quite sure of his final numbers. That said, he didn’t put in much volume over the past 12 months, so it’s safe to say he was never really in contention for back-to-back titles.
Biggest Online Winners of 2014
| Player | Sessions | Hands | Winnings | Profit Per Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Dan “jungleman12” Cates | 669 | 90,052 | $2,805,751 | $31.15 |
|
Mikael “punting-peddler” Thuritz | 353 | 59,239 | $2,572,989 | $43.43 |
|
Patrik “FinddaGrind” Antonius | 373 | 41,850 | $1,683,538 | $40.23 |
|
Isaac “luvtheWNBA” Haxton | 201 | 20,798 | $1,541,060 | $74.09 |
|
Doug “WCGRider” Polk | 108 | 33,496 | $1,077,969 | $32.18 |
 “EireAbu” | 247 | 27,429 | $838,358 | $30.56 |
|
“Sanlker” | 699 | 85,181 | $816,856 | $9.59 |
|
Christoph “Tight-Man1” Vogelsang | 138 | 11,685 | $675,651 | $57.82 |
|
Dan “w00ki3z.” Cates | 549 | 67,900 | $631,288 | $9.30 |
Back in August, Cates achieved a milestone by surpassing $10,000,000 in online high-stakes winnings on Full Tilt Poker. It came after a marathon 26-hour session in which he won $677,400. You can read all about that by clicking here. To date, Cates has a reported $10,211,767 in winnings on Full Tilt Poker over 390,881 hands. More than half of that, $5,380,000, has come playing no-limit hold’em, while $1,860,000 and $1,410,000 have come from pot-limit Omaha and 8-game, respectively.
Cates’ biggest pot of the was a $197,819 monster on August 16 in a hand of PLO playing $300/$600 mixed. Interestingly, it came off the year’s biggest loser, Gus Hansen. Have a look:
Biggest Losers of 2014
Speaking of Hansen, he finished as online poker’s biggest loser for the second year in a row. If you recall, the “Great Dane” lost $8,461,472 in 2013, which came a year after he finished as 2012’s second-biggest online loser by dropping $3,204,539, just behind “Zypherin’s” $3,552,742. In 2014, Hansen lost $5,864,263 in 200,904 hands spread over 1,604 sessions. To date, Hansen has lost $20,737,007 in 1,572,615 hands on Full Tilt Poker, enough to make him online poker’s all-time biggest loser.
"I can't keep losing... At some point, I have to quit," Hansen told PocketFives back in April. Well, he did keep losing, which begs a few questions. Will he quit? Will he continue to bleed money? Or can he somehow find a way to win? Only time will tell.
Biggest Online Losers of 2014
| Player | Sessions | Hands | Losses | Loss Per Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Gus Hansen | 1,604 | 200,904 | $5,864,263 | $29.19 |
|
Phil “Polarizing” Ivey | 824 | 102,365 | $2,372,298 | $23.17 |
|
Viktor “Isildur1” Blom | 2,803 | 320,018 | $1,698,911 | $5.31 |
|
Elior “Crazy Elior” Sion | 521 | 59,999 | $1,222,910 | $20.38 |
|
Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond | 445 | 55,932 | $1,092,098 | $19.52 |
|
Paul “MalACEsia” Phua | 40 | 6,303 | $823,325 | $130.62 |
|
Ben “Sauce1234” Sulsky | 207 | 19,246 | $687,215 | $35.71 |
If there’s any silver lining to Hansen’s year, it’s that he lost less than 2013 despite playing nearly the same amount of sessions (1,627 in 2013 to 1,604 this year) and more hands (200,904 to 171,743). His average loss per hand also dropped from a hefty $49.27 in 2013 to a more modest $29.19 in 2014.
In other news, Phil “Polarizing” Ivey finished as 2014’s second-biggest loser after dropping $2,372,298, which almost matched the $2,441,773 he lost last year. Since Full Tilt Poker’s relaunch, Ivey is down $5,066,411 in 184,433 hands, but overall he is still the biggest winner in online poker history with $19,242,744 in winnings in 319,285 hands over 5,377 hands.
Finally, you'll notice Ben “Sauce1234” Sulsky, who was 2012's biggest online winner with $3,595,666 in winnings, graced the losers list this year after dropping $687,215 in 19,246 hands over 207 sessions.
Biggest Pot of 2014
As for the biggest pot of the year, that belonged to Doug “WCGRider” Polk, who won his first World Series of Poker gold bracelet this year and was also the subject of the PokerNews feature piece, Joy Ride: Doug “WCGRider” Polk’s Road to the Nosebleeds. The hand took place on Sept. 18 in a heads-up match at the $200/$400 no-limit hold’em tables against “Denoking.” Have a look:
That wraps up the play from the high-stakes online world for 2014, but rest assured there will be plenty of action in the new year. We’ll be keeping track of it all every Friday in our Online Railbird Reports, so be sure to check back each and every week for more nosebleed action.
Data, hands and replayer obtained from HighStakesDB.com
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