Player FocuGs: H@LLINGOL

When Poker Verdict reader "pajdegen" suggested we profile online player “H@££INGGOL” we thought it a good idea. After all, our very own David Gross (aka "thekid08" on Stars), has played some $5,000 heads-up games with H@££INGGOL and he got totally 'owned'.

“H@££INGGOL” is a Swedish player called Fredrik Halling and he's achieved near legendary status as an internet poker player.

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He tends to play cash games rather than tournaments, although he has Final Tabled quite a few tourneys (mainly $100 rebuys) on PokerStars in the last 12 months.

But it is in cash games where he has excelled and he has become famous for his hyper-aggressive style of play. Friends say he has made close to $1 million in the last 18 months from ring game action, mainly on PokerStars and UltimateBet.

He is believed to be either the first or second ‘Supernova’ on PokerStars, which means he must have accumulated several hundred thousand FPPs on the site.

Whenever he plays online he attracts a crowd of ‘railbirds’ who love to watch the famed aggression in action.

The following forum post is typical of the reaction H@££INGGOL gets:
“I am on PokerStars and I frequently watch, as many of you may know, the high stakes action or the action of pros/friends/junkies. Today I was watching H@££INGGOL on a 10/20 NL ring game with a max buyin of 2k. H@££INGGOL was sitting with $20,548...I was like wow and saw he was sitting at another table with $13,607, again a max $2k buy in. I ran a search on his name and saw he was playing another NL 10-20 Holdem game where he was sitting with $6,882 and a 10-20 OMAHA ring game where he was sittting with $5,672. I did some simple math and learned that since sitting at these tables this Swedish player from Vasteras has pocketed a cool $38.7K...wow...any idea who this guy is?”

If you come up against Halling chances are you won’t forget the encounter – especially if he outplayed you, which he often does.

Another forum post recalls a hand played against H@££INGGOL in a live game in Vegas: “First week of the World Series and I've just busted out of Event 3 on the second hand and earn the awesome distinction of being the first person out of the tournament...

“Anyway, I decide to sit down for some 10/25 NL... I have about 5k on the table... It is a pretty tight table, except for this one young kid who is playing ultra LAG, but seems pretty good, anyway on to this hand...

“I limp UTG w/ QsJs... one more limper and he makes it 175 on the button, as usual (he covers me by a wide margin)... I decide to take the pot right there as I have not played a hand in the hour I've been there and must have a tight image... i reraise to 675 straight... my best to give him terrible odds to call... He thinks for a long while and eventually calls but is not happy about it...

“Flop comes AsAh6c... I hate this flop because I represented Aces pf, and thats kinda hard to do now, I check (worst mistake of the hand) and he checks behind... turn is 4d..

“I decide that I'm gonna try to rep K's or AK now so i bet 800... he thinks for a while and calls, at this point i put him on 88-QQ... river is Ac, I hate this card... But i just can't give up on the pot so i bet 1600, he thinks for a moment and says i'll double it while throwing out a wad of cash... At this point I say, "I know you got the ace"(river min raise w/ 3 aces out there?) and toss my hand into the muck... he says "ya" and flips over 2d5d for the 3rd nut low...

“Then, today I am perusing N 82 50 24's blog and see that this guy I played against is H@££INGGOL. I have definitely watched him play on several occasions and might have gone about things differently had I known it was him... what a sick play..”

So who is this guy?

In his mid-twenties Halling/H@££INGGOL started playing 5-card draw poker when he was still at school. He says he had a girlfriend in Sweden who hated poker so while they were going out he hardly ever played. But when she moved to England they split up and his poker career really took off.

He started playing on PokerStars but went bust pretty quickly so he emailed the site telling them how sick he was of losing. Then his luck changed. After depositing more money he won $1,000 in a ring game. The next day he won a tourney for $3,000 which was followed very quickly by a $10 rebuy for another $6,000. “After that I never looked back”, he says.

He is well-known for bringing a massive bankroll to the tables he plays on now but what really gave his bankroll the boost it need was winning a huge pot against a player called “halfrek” on a bluff.

H@££INGGOL takes up the story: “It was a hand on a $10-$20 NLH full ring game (nine players). Me and “halfrek” are deep-stacked - he has $20k and I have $16k. An early position player raised to $80, I called in the cutoff with A-8 of spades, and it’s folded to halfrek in the Big Blind who makes it $400 to go. First raiser folds but since we are so deep-stacked I decide to call and see a flop.

“The flop came 10s-6d-2h. He leads out for approximately $700, and for some reason I decided I was gonna win the pot. I flat-called setting up a bluff on the turn. Turn comes Xs, so now I have a flush draw as well. “halfrek” leads out $1,500, so I make it $4,000. He thinks quite a while before making the call. The river was a blank and he checks. There’s approximately $11k out there and I have $10-$11k left. I go all-in and he lets his 120 second time bank run down to 0 before folding. At this time I had a bankroll of about $50k, so it was a big, big bluff at the time.”

Whatever the future holds expect to see more of H@££INGGOL. He is part of a poker crew that includes online friends LURPED, Pbdrunks, SamEnole, and Premier. He also hangs with players such as fellow Swede check_kills, ZeeJustin, RaSZi and VeronicaO. Poker pro Mike Matusow has become a good friend of Halling’s and has put him into quite a few tournaments and funded some of his trips to Vegas.

Apart from the above the online players he says he really respects are twin-caracas, Nazgul18 (“a very tough position expert player”), bet2win (“I stole a few of his signature plays a long time ago, like the always four times BB pre-flop raise”), TheTakeover, Ozzy87, Mahatma, lars magne (Johnny Lodden), thorladen, green plastic and snake8484.
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<!--[endif]-->If you find yourself playing against him be wary. If he raises you all-in for your last $10k he could have the best hand or the worst. One thing is for sure: it’s gonna cost you every last cent to find out.

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