Ilari Sahamies(credit:
YouTube)
We love a man who can play a game of big stack poker. Sure, we’ve heard it said that it’s not the size of a man’s stack, but what he can do with it. Let’s be honest. There’s something about the size of a man’s stack that makes a woman take pause.
Ilari "ziigmund" Sahamies already has our attention when he’s playing anyway. We’d prefer to watch him live than online, but…we can’t get over to Finland that easily…especially not with gas prices and the economy and airlines and well, you know what’s going on in the world these days, don’t you. We don’t need to ruin the mood for you, do we?
Anyway, back to Sahamies and his icy stare and his chiseled good looks and his shaved head and his blue eyes and his dimpled chin and…
Okay.
On Saturday night --- Sahamies was playing online at Full Tilt Poker and he crossed a certain threshold. The Fantastic Finn became the first player to take his stack over a million dollars. Yes, the poker player took his stack to six figures and wielded it like a proud Viking. At one point, ziigmund had more than $1,140,000 on that table.
The record-breaking hand came against fellow Finnish player Patrik Antonius. Here’s the breakdown:
ziigmund is in the small blind. He raises to $3,000, and Patrik Antonius calls in the big blind.
The flop comes 8
, 8
, 9
and ziigmund bets $5,000. Patrik raises to $18,000 and ziigmund makes the call.
The turn comes 2
and ziigmund checks. Patrik does the same.
The river is the 7 ziigmund checks again, and Patrik bets $36,000. ziigmund makes the call.
Patrik shows T, 9 for two pair, nines and eights, and ziigmund shows J, J for two bigger pair.
ziigmund ships the $114,000 pot and cracks the million-dollar barrier for the first time in online poker history.
Okay, okay - later on, Sahamies dropped down below $830k, but for a few shining moments he was indeed a poker god and we enjoyed that moment with him.
Check out Sahamies in the flesh and speaking his native Finnish. This clip comes courtesy of YouTube: