If you are a regular fan of online high stakes poker, then you know the online handle LarsLuzak. For a couple of years now, this player has been a very dominant online player. He splits time between No Limit Holdem and Pot Limit Omaha games online, taking on some of the biggest names on the planet in high stakes cash games. What many people don’t realize is that his name is not actually Lars Luzak as is the common myth.

Lars Luzak is actually Finnish player Sami Kelopuro. It was revealed sometime last year via his personal blog that both the Full Tilt account of LarsLuzak and the Prima account of LrsLzk belong to this player.

Sami Kelopuro image larsluzak

2007 started off very strong for the high stakes pro. In July he won the $10,000 heads-up showdown at PokerStars.com when he beat “ActionJeff” heads-up for the title. However, over the course of the rest of the year, Kelopuro had an incredible downturn and eventually busted from Full Tilt poker. Then he cited a combination of lack of action in high limit ring games and lack of heads-up opponents as reasons for not putting more money back onto his account. He then took a long vacation from online poker and even traveled to Thailand. However, for most of 2008, there was little to be heard from or about him. He was seen some in February playing on the Microgaming network, but was not doing well.

Around September, some rumbling started occurring on Full Tilt Poker regarding “LarsLuzak.” After losing a nearly $500,000 pot online to Peter Jespen, Tom Dwan “Durrrr” told Phil Ivey in open chat that he believed that Kelopuro was playing on Jespen’s account. Apparently Dwan thought that Jespen’s style of play was too similar to Kelopuro’s to be a coincidence.

Dwan claimed that he aired this out in public because he didn’t have a way to contact Ivey on the phone. Dwan claimed part of his reasoning behind his accusation was that both players were in Cannes and logs show that Jespen’s account was logged in from Denmark. Jespen was furious at the accusations and demanded an apology from Dwan, but never received one publicly. Jespen claimed that the two of them have resolved the disagreement, but it still would be better if there was some sort of public apology.

October 13th saw LarsLuzak return to Full Tilt to take on the $200/400 NL, $500/1000 NL, and the $200/400 Pot Limit Omaha games. He had a very up and down day, including a loss to David Benyamine of over $400,000 when Benyamine turned aces full. It looks that overall since his return to Full Tilt, he has pretty much broke even. Kelopuro’s style is described by some as an aggressive European style. At times his style is seen as almost random. He likes to control the action and is a heads-up specialist. LarsLuzak should be entertaining for the railbirds to watch and a nightmare for player to play against.