The recent match between Ossi Ketola and Daniel Cates has changed the balance of power in the list of the most losing players in TV streaming history. The Finnish high roller lost $17 million and confidently topped the losers’ table. It seems that he will remain at the top for a long time.
We decided to remember other poker stream regulars who clearly don't play poker for profit.
Tan Xuan (-$7,726,922)
The Chinese high roller has been playing poker for over 10 years. Tan Xuan started with low-stakes series in China, and in 2015 he even won a big tournament for $250 and received $280k. This was his first major success.
At the moment, Tan Xuan has over $12 million in MTT winnings, almost all of which he won at the Triton series. However, he usually comes to these series for the ultra-expensive cash games.
Tan Xuan had rare positive sessions in shortdeck. At the peak of this game's popularity, he was considered one of the strongest and won $2.3 million. But in regular Hold'em, he almost always performs poorly, and has already lost $10 million in total.
At the 2024 Jeju Series, Tan had the worst session of his career, losing $1.9 million in one night. That same night, he and Seth Gottlieb played one of the biggest pots in TV poker history.
In 2020, Tan tried his hand online. This experiment was not very successful either. In one of the hands at the $500/$1k table, he lost a record (for NLH) pot at that time to Ali Imsirovich.
In 2019, Tan played a tournament with a buy-in of £1 million. It was the first tournament in which amateurs invited regulars. He then played as a professional. In recent series, he has already been given the role of VIP in similar tournaments.
Like most Chinese high rollers, Shuan's biography is shrouded in mystery. A few years ago, journalists from the Triton website learned some details about his rise through the limits.
Eric Persson (-$5,587,250)
The owner of the Maverick casino chain has been appearing at TV tables for a relatively short time. In 2022, an unknown Eric was invited to the PokerGo studio to take part in the $25k heads-up championship. In the first round, he was matched against Phil Hellmuth, who turned out to be the perfect opponent for Eric. Persson put on a whole show, methodically irritating his opponent and easily achieved his goal. Phil began to tilt and demanded protection from the organizers.
After the tournament, Persson became a welcome guest on poker shows. It quickly became clear that earning money was far from his top priority. This gave Erik access to almost any expensive game.
Most of the sessions ended with six-figure losses for Eric. He failed to show a profit in any of the shows.
Persson has also left his name in the book of poker records. In 2023, he and Patrik Antonius played the largest pot in the history of American television. Persson, in his unique style, bluffed without outs.
The last time Erik Persson appeared on a poker stream was in February 2024. Around the same time, he dramatically reduced his activity on social media. It turned out that this was due to serious financial problems with his company Maverick Gaming. This summer, the owners of the casino chain filed for bankruptcy.
– How can you manage to bankrupt a casino? – Reddit commentators wonder.
"He bought small casinos at above-market prices, using low-interest loans. Then the rates went up and the casinos weren't making enough money to pay for the loans. It's likely that, excluding bank interest, the casinos are still profitable.
Matt "Aussie Matt" Kirk (-$5,087,900)
The mysterious Australian high roller quickly burst into the poker world and then disappeared just as quickly and quietly.
Matt became famous for his suspicious winnings in Chinese poker. His opponents were often confident in their advantage, but invariably lost.
From an interview with Dan Zak:
– The hardest downswing I experienced was when I started playing Chinese. I played well, but I couldn’t beat the famous Matt Kirk. I was sure that I was a stronger player, but we had three matches, and each time he won everything that I was willing to risk.
From an interview with Dan Cates:
– I was losing all the time, but then I got a chance to play Chinese poker with a guy named Aussie Matt. I was winning $500k from him, it seemed like he was just playing the wrong way. But then he started destroying me, won back $500k and won a lot on top.
Such miracles did not happen on streams. There, Matt's opponents managed to realize their advantage. In the most famous session, which took place in 2018 in Montreal at the PLO $1k/$2k table, Matt lost $3.6 million to Rob Yong and Leon Tsoukernik in 9 hours.
"More cocaine done on toilet breaks than at a Colombian mafia bosses 40th birthday bash," the author of a popular comment on the video assessed the level of the game.
During one of the broadcasts, players at the table were excitedly discussing how the Australian had invested in cryptocurrencies at the right time. According to rumors, at one point he had 66k bitcoins. Lately, Matt has not appeared at the poker tables – either enjoying the life of a billionaire, or lost everything.
Michael "Texas Mike" Monchek (-$3,085,140)
In poker, Mike made a big splash at the 2022 World Series, which he played "under the Martingale strategy."
At the start of the series, he took 1st place in the $1,500 Limit Hold'em tournament and received $145,856. A couple of weeks later, he registered for the $100k tournament, reached the final table and took 5th place ($420,944). After that, he played the $250,000 tournament. Michael entered it at the very last moment of the second day and was eliminated after 15 minutes. He did not stop there and played the $50,000 Players Championship. In it, Michael stayed in the leading group for some time, but was eliminated in 21st place with 17 prizes.
In 2019, Mike's father tragically died at the age of 53. He suffered a heart attack on the road while driving a car. A couple of years later, Monchek learned that he, too, had serious heart problems. Since then, Mike, by his own admission, adheres to the principle "you only live once." This explains his recklessness at the poker table.
Mike made up all of his losses in TV games in the Million Dollar Game at the Hustler Casino.
Alan Keating won about $3 million in three sessions with Monchek.
In one hand, they went all in preflop for a pot of over $2 million.
The flop came with an ace.
Thomas Goldstein (-$2,731,000)
Thomas lost his millions in the same Million Dollar Game with Keating and Monchek. It took him two sessions to do it.
On his first streams, Goldstein played in a hood and mask, and commentators introduced him as a "businessman from Europe" named Thomas. It later turned out that he was not European at all, but a fairly well-known American lawyer named Tom Goldstein. His poker losses in Hustler are just the tip of the iceberg.
In January of this year, Goldstein was charged with tax evasion and using funds from his law firm to cover gambling debts.
Court documents say Goldstein won three heads-up matches in California and Asia in 2016 for a total of $50 million. However, he failed to build on his success, and by 2021 his poker debts had exceeded $14 million.
The investigation is still ongoing. In early August, news broke that the hapless lawyer had been charged with new charges. According to the investigation, Tom transferred large sums of money to his firm's trust accounts to hide the funds from the US Internal Revenue Service.
Goldstein has made his mark on the Hustler streams. In one hand, he bought a river straight, bet, got called, and folded the best hand.
Honorable Mentions
Bill Klein (-$2,206,074)
Philanthropist Bill Klein is a very wealthy man whose only goal at the poker table is to have fun. His family owned a large cement and other building materials company for many years. When Bill was diagnosed with throat cancer, he sold the business and retired to focus on golf, poker, and charity.
At the table, Bill stands out for his positive attitude. The result is absolutely unimportant to him, he donates not only his winnings, but also his losses to charity:
– I always tell my opponents that the main thing is that they don’t leave me with what I have. If I win $200k, I’ll give it all away, if I lose $200k, I’ll write a check for that amount too.
Bill has been away from poker lately. He hasn't streamed since May 2023 and hasn't played in tournaments since fall 2024. Let's hope this good man is in good health.
Daniel Negreanu (-$1,996,393)
When poker had no shows other than High Stakes Poker, Negreanu was by far the worst player in the game. His dismal results became the subject of ridicule and numerous memes.
PokerGo put together a four-hour compilation of all the hands Daniel played on the show.
The most popular comment under the video:
– "If you're a Daniel Negreanu fan 90% of this video will be brutal to watch."
One of the most popular hands in the history of the popular show was Negreanu's full house against Gus Hansen's quads.
Bill Perkins (-$2,120,975)
Perkins, like Bill Klein, does not play poker for the result. He rarely loses huge sums, but is distinguished by consistency. In Bill's TV career, there was only one session in which he lost more than $500k.
All data is taken from the website https://highrollpoker.com/
