Finnish high-stakes poker pro Patrik Antonius took a moment to speak with PokerNewsduring the Main Event at the European Poker Tour (EPT) stop in Barcelona. He gave an update on the state of high-stakes cash games and shared the details of a bizarre prop bet.


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Speaking to Sarah Herring, the 34-year-old heads-up specialist revealed that live nosebleed games were becoming easier to find in recent months. “There have been a lot of games around the world, even games that I have missed,” he said. “I’ve been looking forward to playing more. It looks like live poker is booming again.”

Antonius has been relatively quiet this year and hasn’t had a major tournament score since winning over half-a-million dollars for taking fifth place in the $100,000 Challenge at the 2014 Aussie Millions. In his recorded tournament career, he has amassed over $6.76 million in cashes.

He has also shied away from online cash game play, grinding out only 700 hands this year for a loss of $74,000 under his FinddaGrind nickname. Last year, he played over 41,000 hands for a profit of $1.68 million and has won over $5.72 million in the lifetime of the account.

Away from the tables, Antonius stays healthy by eating welland exercising regularly. He travels to Barcelona often to visit friends and enjoys running and biking in the country’s mountains. He commented that he hasn’t been doing much strength training has instead been working on his endurance and “trying to become a better athlete.”

As an avid tennis player and coach, it’s only natural that the high-stakes pro would want to spice up the games with some outrageous prop bets. In one recent wager, a tennis-playing friend of Antonius agreed to play a match while wearing SCUBA diving fins and wielding a frying pan in place of tennis racket. The friend prevailed, beating his opponent handily 6-0.

Athletic prop bets are nothing new for Antonius. In a recent interview, Daniel Negreanu‘s full-time caddie Christian Sanchez revealed that Negreanu (pictured) and the Finnish grinder once played golf for $150,000 a hole. It’s unclear who came out on top, but Negreanu attributes $2 million or $3 million in profits to the caddie.

Antonius seems poised to start playing more poker and is feeling healthy after overcoming some issues with physical injuries. “I’m feeling good, happy to train and enjoying life. Poker is going to be better,” he said.

At the time of this writing, Antonius sits with 90,000 chips in the EPT Barcelona Main Event, with Ukraine’s Oleksii Khoroshenin holding onto first place with 1.13 million in chips. The eventual winner will take home a $1.2 million payday.

Looking quite relaxed, Antonius told Herring that he had no real strategy for the tournament and would simply do his best by just “going with the moment.”

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