Jens Kyllönen announces poker retirement

Finnish WSOP and EPT winner and ex-PokerStrategy.com coach Kyllönen swaps cards for notebooks as he takes up studying finance.

A former PLO coach for PokerStrategy.com, jeans has announced in a Finnish news interview that he has retired from poker, opting instead to become a student of finance at the Hanken School of Economics in the Finnish city of Vaasa.

The 27-year old scored the biggest cash of his career less than twelve months ago when he walked away with $1,127,035 from the $25,000 Pot-Limit Omaha High Roller at last summer's WSOP.

In 2009, he banked $1,120,815 for winning an EPT event in Copenhagen at the age of just 19 and was only just crowned the Player of the Year at the Finnish Poker Awards for the third time as recently as January, a matter of weeks before swapping poker for university.

Now, with live earnings of $2,822,256 putting him fourth in the Finnish all-time money list, he has decided to walk away from the game that has served him so well. So well in fact that, with a further $5,448,811 amassed in online games, money was no longer motivation enough to continue playing poker for a living.

Kyllönen said;

"Recently, the idea that I have been doing this for ten years has given me other ideas. Life is, after all, quite short. It would be nice to try something else. It also one of the reasons why I decided to apply for the school."

How long he stays retired only time will tell. Last July, Fedor Holz announced his retirement only to bank €1.3 million a month later when he won an EPT event in Barcelona.

Would you give up poker after a big score?