Jani Vilmunen is a Finnish high stakes poker pro who has both an extensive online and live resume. In regards to his online poker play, Vilmunen was first noticed by HighStakesDB in November of 2009. Since being picked up on our database, he has had a very up-and-down career, which initially started on a big upswing. By January of 2010, Vilmunen had amassed $245k in winnings while playing $200/$400 and $300/$600 PLO games.
His earnings continued to climb throughout the winter as they approached $375k; however, the Finn hit a major snag in February as he lost over $460k, before bottoming out at -$91k in winnings. Interestingly enough though, Vilmunen won his biggest hand during this downswing.
While playing against “Urindanger,” Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies, Cole South and “durrrr,” Ziigmund made a huge raise on a flop of Jh-8d-9d, and Vilmunen called with the rest of his stack ($41,698). Ziigmund flipped over Ac-Ad-9h-2d, and Vilmunen showed 6d-9s-Td-7s; the board provided no help for Sahamies, and Vilmunen won with a straight.
Determined to build upon big hands like this and reconstruct his bankroll, Vilmunen won over $190k from March, 2010 to July, 2010. This put him at $102k in winnings, and the good times rolled as his earnings went up over $300k by August, 2010. Unfortunately, this was merely a precursor for the second major downswing of the Finn’s career as he lost around $375k from August to November, 2010, which left him at -$74k.
From here, it’s been a pretty bumpy road for Vilmunen since his bankroll keeps rising and falling in $50k-$100k swings. Lately, his high stakes winnings (losses) have been sitting around -$100k.
Luckily for Vilmunen, he has a solid live tournament career to back up the online swings. Vilmunen started playing live tourneys in 2004, and his biggest score came in the 2009 WSOPE when he won a £5,000 Pot Limit Omaha tournament ($336,396). In addition to this, he took second at the 2011 Helsinki Freezeout ($63,147), and won a PLO event at the Finnish Open ($53,007).