Ilari Sahamies

  • Name: Ilari Sahamies

  • Current residence: Helsinki, Finland

  • DOB: 1983

  • Birth place: Vantaa, Finland

  • WSOP Bracelets: none

  • Total winnings: $445,046 (March 2010)

  • Marital status: single

  • Age started playing poker: 15

  • Nicknames on various sites: Ziigmund (Full Tilt Poker), Ilari_FIN (PokerStars), Dik Ahamo (Betfair), Ecs_Tasy (Martins Poker), Kamasutra (Ladbrokes), Sutrakama (Microgaming/Prima)

Who is Ilari Sahamies?

Ilari Sahamies, better known as "Ziigmund" online, is one of the most popular online players today. Railbirds always flock to the tables when he's playing, hoping to see another great show by one of the toughest players around. They are rarely disappointed, because with Ilari's aggressive style comes huge wins but also huge swings, and his blow ups in the table chat after bad losses have become legendary.

Ilari Sahamies was born in 1983 in Vantaa, Finland (in the metropolitan area of Helsinki). At school he excelled at various sports, practising  wrestling, football (soccer), basketball and even diving. He was also an avid snooker player and won two Finnish junior championships. He was always interested in all kinds of games, and had become aware of poker at an early age when he saw Texas Hold'em being played in a talk show on Finnish tv. The spark was ignited when he was 15 and tried poker for the first time in some home games with friends. Another player in those games was none other than Patrik Antonius, whom Ilari had met at a local pool hall.

Around this time Ilari also started high school. At first it went well, but as poker became more and more important for him, his studies began to suffer. At one point the principal of his school got so fed up with him that he was almost expelled. Once Ilari got a phone call from his Swedish teacher, asking why he was not at school. "I'm in Amsterdam playing poker," Ilari explained - right before the battery of his cell phone went dead. Next week he returned to school and got an icy reception. However, he finally graduated after 4 years, but at that point he was already thinking of poker as a possible career. "I don't know what I would be doing today if it wasn't for poker," he says now. "But I know it wouldn't be some 9 to 5 job."

When Ilari was 18 he visited Grand Casino Helsinki for the first time, and only two years later poker was his profession. Ilari says that the players at Grand Casino were not very good at the time and he soon realised he could make some money in poker. "The moment when you realise you can beat the game is one of the best there is," he says looking back at that time. The game was usually Pot Limit Omaha and the blinds were $2 or $5 (the small and big blind were the same size).

He played online poker for the first time sometime around 2002 or 2003 at CCC Poker, 24hPoker and Pokerstars. The very first games were at $0.25/$0.5 level but he moved up very quickly - too quickly for his bankroll, as he now admits. As a result, he went broke online a number of times. "I have always wanted to play as high as possible, even if it wasn't the wisest thing to do," he says. "I wanted the kicks and the excitement, but I was always smart enough to go down in levels after a downswing."

The mighty Ziigmund made his first appearance on Full Tilt Poker at the end of 2006, and just a few months later Ilari was already playing the biggest games online. In 2008, "Ziigmund" made $1.6 million on Full Tilt Poker in NL Hold'em, Omaha and HORSE - but of course that is just part of Ilari's total cash game wins last year.

Ilari still lives in Helsinki and says he has no plans of moving abroad like Patrik Antonius or Sami "LarsLuzak" Kelopuro did. Besides poker, he still practises a lot of sports. He goes to the gym, jogs and swims. "You have to be in good shape to be able to play good poker," he says.

He doesn't follow any daily schedule in poker, but rather plays when he feels like it. On some rare occasions he has played 15 hours in row online.

He still goes to the Grand Casino Helsinki from time to time when there is a big game going. He has also played live games in Las Vegas, Barcelona, London and Amsterdam, usually in the side games during big tournaments. Ilari has done very well in these games, even if he hasn’t had much success in tournaments (he has amassed “only” $327,000 in tournament winnings – that’s like one pot in the cash games that he frequents).

Commenting on his cash game results in 2008, Ilari says that he has been taking poker more and more seriously in the last months. Before that, his focus was sometimes far from perfect, even though he has been a professional player for many years.

The American public will have a chance to get to know "Ziigmund" soon, since Ilari will be featured in the fifth season of High Stakes Poker on GSN and also the cash game episodes of Poker After Dark on NBC. "It was a nice experience," Ilari says of the filming of the PAD episodes - but of course he won't reveal the results.

Ilari on Ilari (and some other players)

"I don't think very highly of players who always put their bankrolls first. Of course bankroll management is important and I should be more strict with my roll, too, but some of those guys seem so paranoid about it that their lives must be pretty boring."

"In high stakes games you have to be able to forget the value of money, otherwise you can't even play in those games. Outside the tables it's a different matter, of course. I'm not tight with my money and I like to buy drinks for my mates, but I'm not just throwing money away. I know the value of money when I'm buying a new car."

About his blow ups in table chat: "I try to control myself and I try to avoid personal insults. If I sometimes slip and call somebody a fucker or an asshole, is that so bad? I only make myself look stupid with my comments. All those forum posters critizising me fail to realise that most of my comments are made tongue in cheek, and in fact the players are friends with each other. Sometimes I blow my fuse completely and say something bad when the same player sucks out on me for the sixth time in row, but after a couple of minutes I'm already thinking to myself: Why did I have to say that, NOW I made a complete ass of myself."

About Phil Ivey: "He's a tough player, but he's not very interested in poker anymore. He's so loaded he wouldn't have to play another hand for money for the rest of his life. Often he comes and plays for 10 minutes and then takes off. But when he's focused, he's one of the best."

About Gus Hansen, with whom Ilari has verbally sparred in chat many times: "Gus is a very nice guy and I like to play with him. He always gives me action, and I know he likes playing against me, too. Same can be said for David Benyamine."

About Patrik Antonius: "He is definitely my toughest opponent, for some reason I never seem to be able to play my best game against him. I don't know why, maybe I just go into insta tilt when I see him!"

About Tom "durrrr" Dwan and Brian Hastings: "They are really, really good players. I'm not scared of them, though, even if it's not very +EV to play against them."

The mad genius

Ilari's style can only be described as very aggressive and high variance. His friend and fellow Finnish pro Ville Wahbeck wrote about Ilari in his blog (used here with Ville's permission):

"Ilari is definitely one of the best PLO players in the world. His A-game is simply amazing. His reads are exceptional, and he plays so tough he makes even the strongest opponents look like weak-tight nits compared to him. In heads up he dominates the play totally if his confidence is up and he is able to play his best game. On the other hand, his game is always teetering on the brink of insanity. If his A-game is not working, his B-game is often worse than many players' Z-game. And his C-game is not just tilting, it's more like chip dumping. When that happens, he is just giving his money away, and afterwards he cries his shirt wet and then complains to everybody who listens how he must be the unluckiest player that ever lived."

Lately Ilari has been playing more and more of his A-game and less and less of his C-game, so the other players will have even more to worry about in the future!

Media Exposure