The first half of 2010 has not been good at all to Patrik Antonius, the Full Tilt Poker sponsored pro. Just on the first three months alone, his bankroll saw a drop of more than $3 million. He was counted as the biggest loser on the site because of this extreme bout of bad luck – which is, as you can probably surmise, not a pretty title to have. However, it seems as if Antonius’ luck is finally turning around. He’s currently up by $500,000. This may not be much, but then if you imagine the $3 million deficit that he had to claw his way out of, then you would surely be impressed.

The Downward Spiral

Anybody who has ever played a game of poker probably knows how extreme the swings in luck can get. One minute, you’re on top of the world, next you’re on the ground, twitching. Few people probably know this better than the poker pros themselves, Patrik Antonius included. At the start of the year, Antonius was having a pretty unlucky run. He was down by more than $3 million from January to March. Furthermore, he was having quite a losing streak at the Durrrr Challenge, giving his opponent, Tom Dwan, the opportunity to have a lead of almost $2 million. While the challenge is far from over, it’s obvious that Antonius would have a tough time trying to cope with a gap like this.

Most people would back down after taking such a harsh beating, but not Antonius. One pearl of wisdom he shared during this stint was how a top pro approaches such a loss. He said that his reaction depends on several factors. If there are things happen in his personal life, then he’s likely to let the loss affect himself. It also depends on how the loss happened. If it was a game in which he couldn’t have done much differently, then he won’t let it bother him. However, if it’s a game wherein he could have won but did things wrong, then he would most likely be affected.

Recovering from the Losses

This outlook apparently helped Antonius, because come April, his luck took a turn for the better. He managed to take back his loss of $3 million dollars through a series of wins during the past weeks, each of them amounting to about $350,000. Right now, he’s up by $500,000, which is not much compared to other pros wins, but good enough if you consider the losses he took during the first months. Antonius is calm about the whole thing and pretty much summed it up in his statement, “Things go bad or good… It’s normal. Welcome to the poker world.”

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