Player Focus: KaiBuxxe

‘KaiBuxxe’, aka Niki Jedlicka, is a legend of the online world and one of the most fearless hyper-aggressive players to ever grace the virtual felt.

Like so many before him, the Austrian turned to poker in 2005 after mastering ‘Magic: The Gathering’ and has been making – and blowing – millions of dollars ever since.

After starting off playing Limit Hold‘Em with his brother’s friends in native Vienna he quickly moved to the internet and within a year was playing the $300/$600 games, the biggest going at the time. It was then that he discovered PLO and after starting at $10/$20 proceeded to take shots at games far bigger than his bankroll would allow. But after a consistent winning streak he was able to firmly establish himself as a regular $200/$400 player and fast became one of the biggest winners anywhere.

In 2007 he was Full Tilt’s biggest PLO winner, making well over $3million dollars in 12 months (almost $400,000 more than his nearest rival, the great David Benyamine). In fact, he was the sites biggest overall winner by almost a million dollars and was routinely crushing the likes of Phil Ivey and Gus Hansen in the nosebleed heads-up games. Combined with a reported $1.5million profit on PokerStars (where he plays as ‘RealAndyBeal’) then its fair to say he was the year’s biggest success story by a distance.

His kamikaze style has led to massive swings in fortune, however, and on Christmas Day of 2007 railers were treated to a mammoth heads-up PLO session between KaiBuxxe and Phil Ivey; after the smoke cleared Jedlicka was down over $500,000 for the day.

He has since secured a sponsorship deal with Full Tilt and can be seen playing in red under his full name. Jedlicka is not just about the internet, though, and has live tournament winnings exceeding $480,000. His biggest offline successes include winning the 2007 Austrian Masters Main Event for $94,402, finishing 7th in the ’07 EPT Barcelona for $211,480 and in the 2008 Aussie Millions he ended up 5th for a further $87,903.

While he was in Melbourne the Crown Casino hosted a televised $400/$800 cash game which Jedlicka played in. See the video below for some of the action:

His run in 2007 was so sick that he was nominated for ‘Rookie of the Year’ at the European Poker Awards. He lost out to Annette Obrestad but if it was based on profits, it would be fair to say that KaiBuxxe would have taken the trophy. He admits in his blog that he has no bankroll management or game selection (playing Ivey & Hansen heads-up may be testament to that), but there is no doubting his ability and it would be no surprise to see him back amongst the big winners in 2008.