Jani Sointula, from Helsinki, Finland, is a professional poker player. When he was just seven years old, he saw his father play with their neighbors and desperately wanted to join in. As he grew older, he played poker with his friends besides other sports like football, in order to satisfy his competitive nature. He worked as an internet product manager for a couple of years but in 2001, Jani Sointula decided to take poker seriously and began working on his poker skills at cash games.
His career started on a good note in 2003, when Jani Sointula secured a respectable fifth-place finish in the No-Limit Hold’em event at the Finnish Open Championship. A major breakthrough in his career came on November 11, 2004, when he outlasted a field of 66 players to finish first and bag a whopping $400,000 in prize money in the No-Limit Hold’em event at the Monte Carlo Millions Tournament, which was held at the Casino de Monte Carlo.
In March 2005, Jani Sointula made it to the final table and came ninth in a field of 211 players in the No-Limit Hold’em event at the Grand Final Event – European Poker Tour (EPT)/PokerStars Season1. He also walked away with a handsome amount of $51,507 in this event. In June, Jani Sointula again made it to the ninth place in the No-Limit Hold’em event at the Midnight Sun 2005 Tournament, which was held at the Grand Casino Helsinki and took home $1,502. The following month he got $39,075 in Event 42 No-Limit Hold’em World Championship at the 36th Annual World Series of Poker (WSOP). The following year, in May 19th, Jani Sointula earned $2,000 by finishing seventeenth in the No-Limit Hold’em event at the Ladrokes Nordic Challenge Poker Tournament.
On June 16, 2006, Jani Sointula achieved yet another milestone in his career, when he finished as the runner-up in the No-Limit Hold’em Championship at the Rendezvous a Paris/ World Poker Tour (WPT) Event -Season 5 and walked away with a staggering $466,908 in prize money. A few months later, in November, Jani Sointula got $8,740 by securing nineteenth place in the No-Limit Hold’em Championship at the Betfair Asian Poker Tour.
In April 2007, Jani Sointula came eleventh in the No-Limit Hold’em event at the WPT World Championship/WPT Event Season 5 held at the Bellagio. In this event, which had 294 players and a prize pool of $1,425,900, he collected $16,805. In July, the same year, Jani Sointula added $25,089 to his bankroll by finishing twenty-seventh in Event 50 Pot-Limit Omaha World Championship at the 38th Annual WSOP.
Jani Sointula was nicknamed “Hellraiser” because of his aggressive style of playing. He has never stopped learning from the game and his son, a poker player in the making, is his biggest fan. This Finnish poker player is interested in sports betting and likes to watch ice hockey and football in his spare time. With ten cashes one first-place finish, and total tournament earnings of $1,012,396 to his credit, Jani Sointula is a player to be reckoned with.
