Sami Kelopuro (born 1987 in
Finland
Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...
), a.k.a. LarsLuzak, is a professional
poker
Poker is a family of comparing card games in which players wager over which hand is best according to that specific game's rules. It is played worldwide, however in some places the rules may vary. While the earliest known form of the game w ...
player represented by Poker Icons.
[ ]
Early years
Kelopuro started to play poker
cash game
Cash games, also sometimes referred to as ring games or live action games, are poker games played with "real" chips and money at stake, often with no predetermined end time, with players able to enter and leave as they see fit. In contrast, a pok ...
s in late 2005
when he was invited to a home sit-and-go
poker tournament
A poker tournament is a tournament where players compete by playing poker. It can feature as few as two players playing on a single table (called a "heads up poker, heads-up" tournament), and as many as tens of thousands of players playing on th ...
. Shortly afterwards, he became excited about poker and began playing online tournaments, sit-and-gos, cash games, heads up, shorthanded, and full ring games,. He started on PAF, an online poker room belonging to the Ongame Network, where he made several deposits of €30 each and began playing $0.25/$0.50 and $0.50/$1.00 games. At the time he was just finishing high school, yet he devoted up to 10 hours a day playing online poker. Six months after graduating high school, Kelopuro joined the
Finnish Defence Forces
The Finnish Defence Forces ( fi, Puolustusvoimat, sv, Försvarsmakten) are the military of Finland. The Finnish Defence Forces consist of the Finnish Army, the Finnish Navy and the Finnish Air Force. In wartime the Finnish Border Guard (which i ...
for nine months. During his service, he continued playing online poker and decided that he wanted to play poker professionally after completing his service. He made his first large profits as a cash game specialist on the poker room
Betfair
Betfair is a British Gambling, gambling company which operates the world's largest online betting exchange. Its product offering also includes sports betting, online casino, online poker, and online bingo. Founded in 2000, the business is split ...
.
Progress
Kelopuro made a major impact on the cash game scene in 2007, moving up to high-stakes no-limit
Texas hold 'em
Texas hold 'em (also known as Texas holdem, hold 'em, and holdem) is one of the most popular variants of the card game of poker. Two cards, known as hole cards, are dealt face down to each player, and then five Community card poker, communit ...
and pot-limit
Omaha hold 'em
Omaha hold 'em (also known as Omaha holdem or simply Omaha) is a community card poker game similar to Texas hold 'em, where each player is dealt four cards and must make their best hand using exactly two of them, plus exactly three of the five ...
cash games at
Full Tilt Poker
Full Tilt Poker is an Irish online poker card room and online casino that opened in June 2004. Formerly privately owned by Tiltware, LLC and later by the Rational Entertainment Group, the site was acquired by The Stars Group (then known as Amaya ...
, playing on limits up to $500/$1,000. He was involved in some of the biggest poker hands
at the time, experiencing daily swings up to a million dollars.
He is known for being one of the most aggressive and fearless cash game players in the world.
Despite shying away from the spotlight when he first became popular among
railbirds, he started
blog
A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...
ging at Coinflip, a poker website that he started with fellow Finnish poker pro
Ilari Sahamies
Ilari Sahamies (born 1983 in Helsinki, Finland), also known as Ziigmund, is a Finnish professional poker player. He specializes in high-stakes pot-limit Omaha cash games. Sahamies is known for his trashtalk at the poker table, usually aimed tow ...
. When playing poker online, Kelopuro enjoys challenging himself by playing against some of the best poker players in the world.
During the past years he has started to show results also in live poker tournaments, for a total of more than $200,000 in winnings. In May 2011 he won the Spring Championship of Online Poker Event 38-H ($10,300 No-Limit Hold’em Main Event) for $504,691.09.
In August 2019, Sami Kelopuro won $1.3 Million during 8 hours in a PLO Omaha heads-up game against an unknown player.
As of 2021, Sami Kelopuro has accumulated $1.152 million in live tournament earnings.
Online Poker
Kelopuro has the most success in playing online poker. He is one of the biggest multi table tournament winners in online poker history, cashing for $23.3 million over a number of sites.
On PokerStars, he plays under the screen name “Lrslzk”, where he collected $6.6 million in tournament winnings.
On GGNetwork Kelopuro used the alias “MiMosa1” and his real name. On that site, he collected over $13 million in MTT cashes.
References
External links
Sami "LarsLuzak" Kelopuro's blog on Coinflip.comCard Player profile
Hendon Mob profile
HighstakesDB profileWPT profileWSOP profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kelopuro, Sami
1987 births
Living people
Finnish poker players