Double Olympic Champion Cross Country Skier Plays High Stakes PLO

Petter ‘NorthugJr’ Northug was playing $50/$100 Pot Limit Omaha during the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics.

Northug is one of the most successful Norwegian cross country skiers ever: the two times Olympic champion won the 50 km classical mass start and freestyle team sprint in Vancouver in 2010, in addition to his 11 world championship titles. The 28-year-old ace was a member of the Norwegian team in the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics and, while not achieving outstanding results this time, he managed to get some eyebrows raised by his pastime activity.

Northug engaged in online poker, which is neither a rarity nor big news; what adds spice to it is the limit he was playing: under his ‘NorthugJr’ screen name, he is a frequent visitor of the PokerStars high stakes tables. In the first days of the Olympic Games, he got down $20,000 but won back $12,500 eventually. By the end of the Olympics, he had profited $15,000 in total.

The mainstream Norwegian media reaction was mixed; while it has never been a secret that Northug is an avid poker player, many criticised him for not focusing more on his sport during the Olympics. In an interview for the Dagbladet magazine, Northug’s father said poker was an important part of his son’s preparations, helping him relax between training sessions and events.

“He has indeed been playing poker in the Olympic village, but he was not the only one passing time this way” – said the sportsman’s proud father. When asked if he had been worried Northung losing tens of thousands of dollars, he replied “Poker is like everything else, it is inevitable that you lose sometimes.”

Northug’s high stakes action is all the more interesting as he has been one of the most active players on the highest stakes recently, as well as one of the biggest winners. On 24 February, he won the second largest sum of the day and the largest at PokerStars, $129,799. He won most of it from ‘PimpyLimpy’ in a $50/$100 PLO HU session.

Among the 3,478 hands they played, the biggest pot was $30,700: in the hand, ‘PimpyLimpy’ raised to $300, ‘NorthugJr’ 3-bet to $900 and ‘PimpyLimpy’ called. The flop came 5 A 9, ‘NorthugJr’ bet $1,400 and his opponent called. On the T turn, ‘NorthugJr’ bet $3,650, ‘PimpyLimpy’ called once again and they saw the 3 to arrive on the river. ‘NorthugJr’ bet $9,400, ‘PimpyLimpy’ called and then mucked when ‘NorthugJr’ showed A K 8 A.

Several poker players consider Northug a great talent with a future in the game; some even go as far as regarding him a better player than skier. However, his long term results cannot be tracked, as he has banned himself from HSDB to avoid media attention.

As far as high stakes games in February are concerned, action has been little this month; the biggest winner at the moment is Harry ‘Schoitl’ Casagrande with $411,173 in 6,445 hands and the biggest loser titles go to their usual tenants, Full Tilt Poker pros Viktor ‘Isildur1’ Blom (-$684,118 in 7,564 hands) and Gus Hansen (-$190,315 in 4,578 hands).