Linus “LLinusLLove” Loeliger is considered the most skilled poker player in the world by most professional players. He is playing the highest limits in no-limit hold’em, PLO, heads-up, and MTTs against the most fierce competition. His main game is a 6-max no-limit hold’em, but he has also had success in other formats.
Many players and media consider Michael Jordan the best player ever for his skill, achievements, and dominance on the basketball court. We can say the same for the things LLinusLLove has done in the world of poker.
Where it All Started
Linus launched his poker career with a thread on the 2+2 poker forum where, at the start of 2013, he posted this:
“Hey, 2p2’ers. I’m 19 years old, live in Switzerland, and have been playing poker for a few months. I’ve read a few books and tons of threads on this forum. I first started playing on 888poker, but I’ve always had some tilting problems and BRM problems, so to help that, I’m gonna start a challenge, where I update graphs, hands, and other stuff. I will do this challenge for me so I stay in my BRM and can review some hands in this thread. With this new challenge, I switched to a new site, Pokerstars, and I’m starting at NL10 6 max with a 15 BI – BRM. My goal is to get to 100NL by the end of the year 2013. My stars-name is “llinusllove,” by the way.”
After that post, he kept posting hands and set goals for the number of hands, the move-up in stakes, the number of forum posts, and the reading of books.
Linus wrote about his bankroll management issues, where he moved up to NL25 and then dropped back down to NL10 when he lost a few stacks. He also said he had big tilt problems, so he kept re-reading mental game books.
One of the first graphs Linus posted was from week 2 of his challenge, where he was about to finish his goal of 12,000 hands, and we can see that he was already becoming a red-line player (non-showdown winner).
Linus started to have success at NL25 and build up his bankroll, but he wasn’t happy with his volume since he was only four tabling regular tables. There were also situations where he was traveling and couldn’t play, but he was always trying to find time for studying and reviewing hands with his friends.
He already started taking some shots at NL50 and said he enjoyed the style of play there since all the regulars were aggressive, but the limit still had enough recreational players.
Struggling to Get to Next Level
After a few shots at NL50, Linus hit a rough patch and mowed down to NL25. He said he would stop playing NL50 because he got “wrecked 3 times by the same reg within 1,000 hands.”
Linus then had a new idea – he wanted to learn mass-tabling to chase supernova elite (the highest rakeback status that gives between $105,130 and $129,600 to players who achieve it in a calendar year) on PokerStars. So Linus started playing Zoom Poker and dropped back to NL10 to learn to play high volume. He hit the wall again and decided to stop playing fast poker and focus on studying.
He also played some Sit and Gos and MTTs, but that didn’t last long, and he was back to regular tables, 6-max NL25. He also posted his lifetime SharkScope graf from December 2013.
Linus then posted this: “Okay, sorry guys about my nonstop-gameplan changing. But I need to get some order in my life (like KP24, good example). You probably will be like, “lol 2 days and he’s at another limit again” but idc, somehow I need to learn from my mistakes (to go pro, it needs order and patience, not just roll thru all stakes randomly). I need to PROVE that I’m a winner over a SAMPLE at 25NL before moving up.”
Progress in 2014
Three days into the new year, Linus made another post on the forum, saying that he would stop updating his results as it was putting too much pressure on him and that he was going to let the thread die. He also said that he moved up to NL50 and plans to achieve supernova elite status. He posted his NL50 graph below this post.
Six days later, he was playing NL50 and bum-hunting NL100 when the NL50 tables didn’t have good action. He also mentioned he has a good bankroll now and posted his win rates.
He was rising very fast, and a few days later, he was playing NL50 deep ante tables and regular NL100 tables, where he was finding even more success and posting winning graphs. However, he was still struggling with tilt, as we can see in the following graph he posted.
Getting Established and Traveling to Play Live Poker
While still struggling with his mental game, Linus continued to post decent results. He started traveling around Europe to destinations like London and Malta to play live poker, and he also posted the results of his live poker tour.
He started his first trip with a bankroll of £1,700 for poker, hotel, and food, and he ended up with £5,200, making £3,500 in profit. He mentioned that he played the biggest pot of his life against another player from the 2+2 forum, and he won £2,200.
His next bankroll update was that he had $8,000 and that he would put half of that on PokerStars and get back to the NL50 online grind. And he did. He was back online posting winning graph after winning graph while also winning some random MTTs in the process.
In a few months (22.4.2014), he moved alone to Malta and played NL100, where he put a lot of volume into playing Zoom. He mentioned that he loved playing poker every day, all day, and he had days when he played 14,000 hands and won 18 buy-ins ($1,800).
He also said that he felt like easily the best player (not one of the best) at NL100 Zoom. He moved up to NL200, where he had mental problems since a lot of money was involved in every hand. He was talking to other players and realized how little he knew about the game.
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Linus also wrote: “I know a lot of you guys and a lot of my non-poker friends are thinking,’ Wtf is this creepy dude doing alone in Malta playing only poker and not going to the beach / going out every day?’, but honestly, I don’t care about this. I was going to Malta to play poker, immensely improve my game, and make some money, and I think I definitely achieved that, and I’m happy with how it all went.”
He concluded that he made about $28,000 playing cash games, MTTs, and rakeback and will no longer update his poker goal challenge thread. The only post he made was saying he is moving to a poker house in Malta for the next six months.
Best Player in The World
Since his last post in June 2014, Linus has risen to the highest stakes in online poker, reg battling anyone who would sit at his table. His colleagues and audience marked him as the best player in the world, as in 2016, we could have already seen him playing $25/$50 online. He continued to move up and play the highest possible stakes online ($400/$800) while facing names like OtB_RedBaron, Limitless, Trueteller, and others.
He was still trying to stay anonymous as he said nothing good comes from being known. However, after winning the €2,200 No Limit Hold’em Highroller in London, his name came out and got connected to the online persona.
Linus went on to make millions while also improving to a world-class level at other formats of poker.
In 2022, he won the $200,000 No Limit Hold’em—Coin Rivet Invitational event for $3,900,000, which is his most significant live MTT win. He is currently the number one ranked player on Switzerland’s All-Time Money List with $8,380,964 in total live earnings.
He is still considered the best player in the world in 2025. He competed in CoinPoker’s cash game world championship and came in third place, winning $257,901.13 over 32,978 hands.
