Dominik Nitsche

Hailing from Germany, 23 years old at the time of writing this article, Dominik Nitsche is one of the true young talents in the game of poker in the recent years. Born on October 11 1992, this youngster managed to achieve one of his biggest live scores even before he graduated from the high school. He first came in contact with poker through television commercials for an online site. They peaked his interest and soon he started dabbling with the play money. During that same period, he played his first home game with his friends as well, and they all had so much fun with it that it immediately became a weekly event. But it was not long before the poker has turned into much more than fun. Known online under aliases like “TJCookier”, “JustLuck1337” and “Bounatirou”, his tournament achievement started adding up. During the early 2009 he came second in the $200 FTOPS event, taking home $63,000. On the heels of this victory, he continued to accumulate successes, and according to Pocketfives.com, he has so far won well over $3 million during his online career. He says that what he found mostly appealing about poker was the fact it was the strategic game that could be played for a lot of money. During early day of his play he never used to share too much information about how he was doing at the tables with his family, until his success became impossible to hide when live scores started coming in as well. In the April of 2009, Nitsche decided to play LAPT stop in Mar de Plat, Argentina. He did not know that tournament would ensure him a place in the poker history right at the onset of his career. Working his way through the field of 291 players, many of which were top notch professionals like Joe Hachem, he captured the first place and seized the payday of over $380,000. Still attending high school at this time, he became youngest ever player to win an LAPT title. Eager to continue his growth as a player, Dominik continued playing tournaments around the world, in preparation for the 2012 when he was finally old enough to hit the tables in Vegas. During the summer of that year he managed to win his first bracelet in the $1k event, together with the score of $654,000. Also winning the WPT event in Johannesburg later in October, he is only an EPT victory short from achieving the Triple Crown. His live tournament earnings to date are over $2.7 million, meaning that in his rather short career poker has brought him about six million dollars. Apart from poker, Nitsche enjoys partying and spending time with his friends, and he is also a huge soccer fan. He also jokingly claims that he loves steak more than anything in the world.