Player Focus: slaktarn

OMGClayAiken: who are you?
slaktarn: why?
OMGClayAiken: because no one knows you and
you're up 2mill
OMGClayAiken: so im curious

Phil Galfond may as well have been speaking for the entire poker community when put this question to one of the games most mysterious players earlier this year.

‘slaktarn’ has taken the high stakes world by storm in 2008 and his anonymity continues to ignite curiosity and frustration among the nosebleed elite.

The Swede, an Omaha specialist, was up over $2million on the Full Tilt PLO games at one point this year before posting overall profits of $730,000 to the end of September (according to High Stakes DB).

Though he has always been known for his love of action and hyper-aggressive style, a recent interview with Swedish PokerMagazine shed some more light on the background of one of the Sweden’s top online players.

‘slaktarn’ is 27 years old and hails from a small town in southern Sweden. He revealed that despite his poker winnings he still lives with his parents, his mum working in health care & his father as an entrepreneur (‘a very ordinary Swedish family’ as he says). He also briefly worked in a McDonald’s before he discovered his calling.

So where did he get his love of poker from? He says he opened his first account at 24h poker when he was 18, moved from Hold ‘Em to Omaha and quickly built up a bankroll of $500,000, only to lose it all in a week! He then made a fresh start on Full Tilt with $10,000 borrowed from a friend and quickly built it up to $100,000: from there he has never looked back and is now seen tussling in the highest PLO games anywhere online (we wonder how long it will be before he enters Gus Hansen’s $2000/$4000 o8 table).

It probably won’t be long, as when asked who the weakest players at Full Tilt were, Gus Hansen was top of his list, saying: “I personally think he is a giant fish in Omaha”. (He named Patrik Antonius as the strongest).

Due to his confrontational style, it is not surprising that he has had run-ins with the internets finest, as this brief conversation with Tom Dwan demonstrates:

slaktarn: soo lol
durrrr: sit in pls
slaktarn: fu fish
durrrr: sitting out is just prolonging the inevitable...
durrrr: i wonder if that idiot
durrrr: realizes i was a favourite

(This was shortly after he had lost a $200,000 pot to Dwan).

Despite his legend growing from the big cash games, slaktarn also has a phenomenal high-stakes tournament record. He doesn’t play many, but in just 3 tournaments on Full Tilt he has made over $800,000! These include victory in a $500 winner take all PLO tournament for $25,000 as well as coming 3rd in FTOPS Event #17 ($2,500 NLH) for a cool $288,169 in February 2008. But September proved to be his crowning glory as he took down the massive $25,000 PLO heads-up tournament for a monster pay-day of $560,000 (this was more than the NBC or WSOP heads-up Champions received). By beating Antonius heads-up in the final, he will certainly incur further wrath from the pro-PA rail on FT.

There have been numerous rumours about his identity, with various forums catching him talking to THE__D__RY on PokerStars and a number of players saying they played with him at the EPT Barcelona. Indeed, many Swedish players say that his identity is not a well-kept secret in his homeland anymore. However, while he chooses to remain low-profile with his identity, the man whose screen-name means ‘The Butcher’ in English will continue to provide entertainment for players and railers alike. So long as he can keep his bankroll intact, of course.