With the assault on the online poker industry from the US Department of Justice in April (forever to be known as Black Friday in the annals of poker history) the online poker action came to a screeching halt, and just as things started to pick back up again Full Tilt Poker went black, leaving the game’s high-stakes players without a home, and many deprived of their funds.

Despite Black Friday and the demise of Full Tilt Poker, many of the game’s best eventually made their way over to PokerStars, where the high-stakes action resumed, albeit at a slightly lower level than the games that took place at Full Tilt Poker.

By the end of October it was shaping up to be a two-man race between Rafi Amit and Ilari Sahamies, and in the end it was Sahamies who would out-earn Amit by a nose, as well as holding off a late-charging Viktor Blom who finished in 3rd place overall.

Sahamies entered August $362k in the Red, but managed to win nearly $2.5 million in the last four months of the year to end with an overall profit of $2,183,832, just over $70,000 ahead of Amit who was unable to build upon a $1 million September, winning only around $275,000 over the last three months of the year (it is so strange to write the words “only $275k!).

After becoming a fixture at the online poker tables, after Black Friday Blom was absent for most of the year on PokerStars despite being a Team PokerStars Pro, returning in December and trouncing just about every player he took on. In the end the Team PokerStars Pro and one of the poker world’s true enigmas managed to win nearly $1.5 million for the year.

Here is a look at the 10 biggest winners of the year for 2011 at the High-Stakes Poker tables PokerStars –I would have included all of the sites but keep in mind that the Full Tilt Poker winners are unable to access their accounts, never mind their winnings!

Top 10 winners on PokerStars during 2011 courtesy of highstakesdb.com:

1. Ilari “Ilari FIN” Sahamies — $2,183,832

2. Rafi “refaelamit” Amit — $2,105,597

3. Viktor “Isildur1” Blom — $1,472,695

4. Jens “Jeans89” Kyllönen — $1,377,019

5. Gavin “gavz101” Cochrane — $1,197,672

6. Ronny “1-ronnyr3” Kaiser — $1,191,110

7. 1Ill1Ill1ill — $1,160,769

8. Andreas “skjervoy” Torbergsen — $1,132,635

9. L0ve2playU — $1,092,399

10. Benny “Toweliestar” Spindler — $1,070,907

Of course for every winner there has to be a loser! So here is a look at the 10 players who lost the most money at PokerStars during 2011 courtesy of highstakesdb.com:

1. Zypherin — $1,054,638

2. Richard “nutsinho” Lyndaker — $1,025,356

3. nasud 11 — $877,151

4. Nikolaus “RealAndyBeal” Jedlicka — $735,094

5. VietRussian — $724,272

6. MamaOsa55 — $720,385

7. Anton “antonionel” Ionel — $703,103

8. Patrik “Fake Love888” Antonius (unconfirmed) — $696,030

9. venced0r — $599,958

10. seghei007 — $575,170

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Tags: Annals, Black Friday, Blom, Demise, Department Of Justice, Enigmas, Four Months, Full tilt Poker, High stakes poker, Ilari Sahamies, Man Race, Months Of The Year, Online Poker, Poker Action, Poker Tables, Poker World, PokerStars, Rafi Amit, Screeching Halt, Us Department Of Justice

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