One of many prodigal players emerging from Finland in recent years, Joni Jouhkimainen is a young talent with an impressively broad range of poker experience. Although he began playing the game at 15, he couldn’t start making a living from it until he was legally able to step into a casino. When Joni turned 18, he began playing Pot Limit Omaha cash games at live tables in Helsinki and has been winning at poker ever since.
His bread and butter is PLO and Joni generates his most consistent income through playing at the cash tables online. Operating under the screenname ‘bustoville’ on PokerStars, he is a regular at the PLO Zoom games and has played as high as $100/$200 against the toughest players around. However, Jouhkimainen prides himself on dedicating time to improving his tournament skills so that he can compete in both formats. This has led to him being successful in this realm as well, with major online wins including a 2016 SCOOP title in the 19-H $1,050+R NLH event for $148,263.
He has also racked up a couple of six-figure scores on the live tournament circuit. The bigger of these was back in 2012, when he finished in third-place at the EPT Barcelona €5,000 Main Event for $496,436. While Joni was unfortunate to miss out on the win, his countrymen were represented well as fellow Fin Illari Sahamies finished above him to take second. With Barcelona proving to be a tournament stop that is kind to him, Jouhkimainen final-tabled the €10,000 EPT No Limit Hold’em High Roller Re-Entry event a year later. In a star-studded line-up that included Daniel Negreanu, Ole Schemion and Jonathan Duhamel, the Finnish talent closed the show in fourth for $197,977.
For someone that is a cash game specialist, a combined total of over $3,800,000 in live/online tournament earnings is proof of Joni’s aptitude for poker in general. In 2015, he became a coach at the respected Run It Once training site, where he regularly makes videos that focus in-depth on PLO cash game strategy.
