Ilari SahamiesIlari Sahamies, better known as "Ziigmund" online, is one of the most popular online players today. Railbirds always flock to the tables when he's playing, hoping to see another great show by one of the toughest players around. They are rarely disappointed, because with Ilari's aggressive style comes huge wins but also huge swings, and his blow ups in the table chat after bad losses have become legendary. Ilari Sahamies was born in 1983 in Helsinki, Finland. At school he was good at sports, practising wrestling, football (soccer), basketball and even diving. He was also an avid billiards player and won two Finnish junior championships. He was always interested in all kinds of games, and had become aware of poker at an early age when he saw Texas Hold'em being played in a talk show on Finnish tv. The spark was ignited when he was 15 and tried poker for the first time in some home games with friends. Another player in those games was none other than Patrik Antonius, whom Ilari had met at a local billiards hall. Around this time Ilari also started high school. At first it went well, but as poker became more and more important for him, his studies began to suffer. At one point the principal of his school got so fed up with him that he was almost expelled. Once Ilari got a phone call from his Swedish teacher, asking why he was not at school. "I'm in Amsterdam playing poker," Ilari explained - right before the battery of his cell phone went dead. Next week he returned to school and got an icy reception. However, he finally graduated after 4 years, but at that point he was already thinking of poker as a possible career. "I don't know what I would be doing today if it wasn't for poker," he says now. "But I know it wouldn't be some 9 to 5 job." When Ilari was 18 he visited Grand Casino of Helsinki for the first time, and only two years later poker was his profession. Ilari says that the players at Grand Casino were not very good at the time and he soon realised he could make some money in poker. "The moment when you realise you can beat the game is one of the best there is," he says looking back at that time. The game was usually Pot Limit Omaha and the blinds were $2 or $5 (the small and big blind were the same size). He played online poker for the first time sometime around 2002 or 2003 at CCC Poker, 24hPoker and Pokerstars. The very first games were at $0.25/$0.5 level but he moved up very quickly - too quickly for his bankroll, as he now admits. As a result, he went broke online a number of times. "I have always wanted to play as high as possible, even if it wasn't the wisest thing to do," he says. "I wanted the kicks and the excitement, but I was always smart enough to go down in levels after a downswing." The mighty Ziigmund made his first appearance at Full Tilt Poker at the end of 2006, and just a few months later Ilari was playing the highest stake games online. In 2008, "Ziigmund" made $1.6 million at Full Tilt Poker in NL Hold'em, Omaha and HORSE - but of course that is just part of Ilari's total cash game wins last year. Ilari still lives in Helsinki and says that he has no plans of moving abroad like Patrik Antonius did. Besides poker, he still practises a lot of sports. He goes to the gym, jogs and swims. "You have to be in good shape to be able to play good poker," he says. He doesn't follow any daily schedule in poker, but rather plays when he feels like it. On some rare occasions he has played 15 hours in row online. He still goes to the Grand Casino Helsinki from time to time when there is a big game going. He has also played live games in Las Vegas, Barcelona, London and Amsterdam, usually in the side games of big tournaments. Ilari has usually done very well in these games, even if he hasn't had any success in tournaments (he has amassed only $156,000 in tournament winnings - a mediocre sized pot for him in cash games). Commenting his cash game results in 2008, Ilari says that he has been taking poker more and more seriously in the last months. Before that, his focus was sometimes far from perfect, even though he has been a professional player for many years. The American public will have a chance to get to know "Ziigmund" soon, since Ilari will be featured in the fifth season of High Stakes Poker on GSN and also the cash game episodes of Poker After Dark on NBC. "It was a nice experience," Ilari says of the filming of the PAD episodes - but of course he won't reveal how the games went.
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