Niklas “ragen70” Heinecker Up $4.2m To Become 2013's Biggest Online Poker Winner

Germany is proving to be a dominating force in the poker world this year, and not only has poker sensation Philipp Gruissem just taken down his second straight win at the WPT Alpha8 St. Kitts to boost his 2013 earnings to $4,605,401, but fellow countryman Niklas “ragen70” Heinecker’s online cash earnings have just surpassed $4.19 million for the year, making him online poker’s biggest winner of 2013 so far.
Incredibly, the 28-year-old German pro only started grinding on Full Tilt Poker this May, and in August was actually in the red before going on a tear over the past few months. One of the largest pots he won during this period was a massive one in which he held 8-6 on a 9s-7s-5 flop to MalACEsia’s As-Qs. Fortunately for him, no spade fell on the turn and river and so Heinecker ended up scooping the huge $403,000 pot.
In addition to being acknowledged as one of the best 6-max NLHE players in the world, Niklas “ragen70” Heinecker has also been cleaning up at the Triple Draw tables, too, and last Thursday won $573k in just five and a half hours play across eight tables of $2k/$4k 2-7 Triple Draw.
Nevertheless, online cash games is not the only place where Heinecker has been amassing huge scores and on June 5th, the German poker sensation took down the HK$1m GuangDong Asia Millions in Macau for a life-changing HK$34.6m (US$4,456,885) score.
In total, Heinecker’s 2013 winnings across both the online and live arena now comes to more than $8.7 million, making for one of the most extraordinary years ever experienced by any poker player. Currently residing in the UK, Niklas Heinecker had largely got under the poker media’s radar until he took down the Macau tournament this year. However, his skills haven’t gone unnoticed by his fellow competitors and as top Canadian pro Michael McDonald noted: “He’s probably one of the top five poker players in the world.”