Anton “antonionel” Ionel is a Romanian engineer and high stakes poker player from Bucharest.
Interestingly enough, Ionel holds the dubious distinction of having the highest WSOP finish ever by a Romanian-born poker player. But before we get into that subject, it’s worth discussing how Ionel has rubbed elbows with some of the world’s best online PLO players at the $25/$50 stakes.
Strong live tournament player, as previously discussed, Ionel earned the best WSOP finish out of any Romanian after he took second in a 6-handed $2,500 PLO tournament ($428,140). He made a strong run at the gold bracelet in this event, before Ukraine’s Oleksii Kovalchuk beat him heads-up. Aside from the runner-up 2011 WSOP finish, Ionel had an even bigger cash in the 2011 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, where he finished third and earned $1,350,000.
Other Ionel cashes worth discussing include when he took 427th in the 2011 WSOP Main Event ($27,103), and 46th in the 2008 EPT Budabest ($7,989). In all, he has earned $1,827,850 across six tournament cashes.