Heinecker and Hansen are the biggest high stakes winners and losers of 2013

Niklas 'Ragen' Heinecker dominated the high stakes games in 2013. Find out who the biggest winners and losers of the year were.

2013 was truly the year of Niklas ragen Heinecker. The young German pro not only had one of the biggest live results of the year but also dominated the nosebleed games online. 

Although he wasn't a major presence on the live circuit, he had one of the biggest single results of the year. He won the HK$ 1,000,000 GuangDong Asia Millions event in Macau in June for HK$ 34,600,000 ($4,456,885).

This was merely the icing on the cake for a tremendous year at the online felt in the toughest cash games in the world. In 506 sessions and 65,577 hands he accumulated a profit of $6,190,599 - nearly double that of his nearest rival. He played as high as $400/$800 No Limit online and his biggest pot of the year was $403,347.

His $6,190,599 year is the third biggest recorded online year for an online high stakes player (Only Patrik Antonius and Phil Ivey have had bigger years), but when combined with his $4,456,885 tournament win this year must put him into the 'world's best' discussion. 

Most of the big winners of the year played mainly on one site, but the second biggest winner of the was Norwegian player Ola 'Odd_Oddsen' Amundsgard, who won $1,849,293 on Full Tilt and $1,805,454 on PokerStars to net the second biggest combined win of the year. 

Ben Tollerene, Hac Dang and Alex Millar all ended the year in the top five as millionaires for 2013. 

Another terrible year for Gus Hansen

Spare a thought for the Great Dane Gus Hansen, who was left licking his online wounds yet again in 2013.

The gravity of Hansen's online losses became very well documented in 2013 and he ended the year down $8,461,472 over 171,743 hands. 

Not only is this the biggest single recorded losing year for any player since records began, this is the third time that Gus was the named the biggest online loser of the year.

His recorded online losses since high stakes games were tracked in 2007 are almost $15 million. 

It was also a rare losing year online for Phil Ivey, who dropped $2,441,773 over 76,301 hands in 2013.

Another swingy year for Blom

Among the other well known pros, Patrik Antonius had a good year overall, up $1,764,977 on Full Tilt but down $521,983 on PokerStars to end the year up $1,242,994. Ike Haxton also ended the year up $1,051,218. 

He may have had his biggest losing year live and is rumoured to be broke, but Tom 'durrrr' Dwan did technically have a winning year online, up $759,625. Phil Galfond also ended the year a small winner (for him) up $296,821. 

Once again, perhaps the most interesting case study has to be Viktor 'Isildur1' Blom. On the face of it it seems his $542,796 winning year is a solid result that any pro would be proud of. 

However when you consider that at several stages of the year he was up over $4 million in 2013, which included an amazing start to January 2013 where he was up $2.4 million, the year might almost seem like a loss for Blom. Once again he fell victim to his world famous roller coaster swings. 

Here are the top five winners and losers for 2013. Thanks to HighStakesDB.com who collected these results. 

by Barry Carter