Johnny Lodden

Picture a roller coaster ride. One that has its peak as high as the Himalaya’s, and has a valley as deep as the Mariana Trench. This should be one of the things that come to mind when you think about Johnny Lodden, the Norwegian poker phenom who decimated the opposition at the highest levels even before the highest levels were common place (before Durrrr and Antonius), and managed to lose his whole roll, and then found stardom by building a new roll and get sponsored by world’s biggest poker site.

Lodden was born on June 1st, 1985 in Jørpeland, which is a small town in the municipality of Strand located in the county of Rogaland in Norway. It’s a very small town somewhere near the south-western coast of Norway, and also a very quiet town. Jørpeland currently barely cracks 6,000 inhabitants.

Lodden started to play cards at a very young age, most of the time in the garage at home with close friends. Whatever he won in these “underground” live games, he would put it online and try his luck, with varying measures of success.

In the very beginning of his online career, he would play $1/$2 limit poker. Lodden, however, quickly moved through the limits, and within six months he was already playing $15/$30 LHE. Johnny would grind with a passion and devotion, some of the times following a wake up > poker > sleep > wake up pattern. 12 hour long sessions were not uncommon.

All of that devotion would pay off though, and his prima network nick “bad_ip” would soon be a staple in the highest limits of poker. At the time, the biggest games on the net would be found on the Prima Network, $200/$400 NLHE. Lodden amassed a very large bankroll by then, quite a lot north of 7 figures.

But then, Lodden would lose a lot of money, sending his bankroll on life support. Many sources tell different stories about this twist of turns, but two are the most convincing ones. First, Lodden lost a lot of money to an alleged scammer that could play at his limits. The scammer had somehow transferred a worm to his computer, and could see his hole cards or so the theory goes. There is a lot of circumstantial evidence supporting this claim not just by Lodden, but by many of the other Prima Network nosebleed players at the time. Patrick Antonius himself allegedly lost about 500,000€ to the scammer in about 10 sessions, noticed something was wrong, and then purchased a new computer and played him again, and proceeded to win. The scammer then proceeded to sit out and not play Antonius anymore.

The second story is that Lodden got knee-deep in sportsbetting, and couldn’t control himself. Remember that these are all myths, not facts. It is general knowledge of the poker world, but it stands unverified as is.

Anyway, we now arrive at the first Mariana Trench-like valley in Lodden’s career, in which he is flirting with Bustoville. In August of 2007 Lodden gave a brief interview with the Danish poker journal Acemag, were he admitted that his roll was almost gone, and decided to retire his old “bad_ip” account. In the interview, Lodden also admits he had to start anew while being staked by a friend.

While starting anew, Lodden wasted no time. He has cashed 8 times in the European Poker tour, and has also made the final table in the Budapest 2008 event. In the 2008 PokerStars.com EPT Grand Final in Monte Carlo, Lodden was chip leader much of the tournament but ended up in 17th place earning €46,300 ($73,797). In live tournaments alone, to date Lodden has cashed upwards of $245,000.

His rebirth and strong showings in the tourney scene and legendary cash game resume did not go unnoticed, as Lodden got sponsored by PokerStars. In 2009, PokerStars announced that Lodden would join its team of Poker Pro’s, and Lodden would join such other legendary figures such as ElkY, Dario Minieri, Joe Hachem and Greg Raymer. Lodden is also the first Norwegian to join the elite group.

Fellow poker pro’s Antonio Esfandiari and Phil Laak came up with a game that they called “What Lodden Thinks”. It’s a prop betting game that involves on what a third person, not necessarily Lodden, thinks about a variety of subjects, and then two bettors would bet on the outcome. If Lodden is present, then of course, its all his call. This game has even been featured on the most popular televised poker shows, such as High Stakes Poker and Poker after Dark.

An example would be: “How much does a 2009 Harley Davidson Night Rod Chopper cost?” If I would guess $16K (the actual answer), my opponent guesses $38K, and Lodden reveals that his best guess would be about $42K, then my opponent wins. Questions span all topics, but the most easily preferred ones are the ones which have no basis on fact, but only on opinion, such as “How much money would you have to be paid to swim with sharks without a safety cage?”

Why Johnny Lodden, you ask? Well, Lodden enjoys a somewhat mythical reputation in the online poker world. He was the first to be involved in the truly big pots. He was the first to do the massive climb of limits, starting all the way from the bottom. Back in 2005, $200,000 and $300,000 and beyond pots were unthinkable, yet Lodden would find himself involved in these. So, it would seem logical that people would be somewhat interested in what he things, at least jokingly.

All in all, Johnny Lodden is The Man. He has been around forever in the online world, has known sweet victories and also bitter defeats, and he keeps coming. Johnny Lodden is truly an inspiration to us all.

Common misspellings: Jonny Lodden, Johnny Loden, Johnnie Lodden

Learn more about Johnny Lodden at PokerStars.

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