Poker Writer
Ossi “Monarch” Ketola and Dan “Jungleman” Cates played in the largest livestreamed poker games of all time on Tuesday on the shores of North Cyprus. Cates won roughly $15 million from Ketola across a series of heads-up matches.
Ketola has burst onto the poker scene within the last year on the Triton High Roller Series. The bold Finnish professional gamer and now poker high roller promised to “retire” Jungleman as he continued to push the stakes higher and higher. But in the end, the longtime high-stakes pro got the better of him for an eight-figure windfall.
The two battled for almost 12 hours at the Merit Royal Diamond Resort. The Onyx Poker YouTube stream broadcast it all, with the matches overshadowing the tournament action posted by the upstart operator.
How Much Did Jungleman Win Vs. Monarch?
Jungleman versus Monarch started with a €1 million match (€2 million total pot). Across a series of six matches, they continued raising the stakes. By the end, they played for €6 million apiece. Jungleman won the last three matches in a row at stakes of €5 million, €5 million, and €6 million to clean out his opponent.
Each match featured the players starting with 100 big blinds apiece and no reloads. So, they played €5,000/€10,000 blinds in the initial game and so forth, ending at €30,000/€60,000. According to the commentary, Jungleman paid some vig to account for his expected edge in the matches, so the bottom-line numbers slightly misrepresent his total win.
Jungleman took a quick victory in the first matchup, which only motivated Ketola to try again. He asked for an immediate rematch with the same stakes. Ketola would be the one to escalate the action each time for the rest of the day.
The second match went the way of Monarch as he evened the score. They then tripled the stakes as each player put up €3 million. Ketola earned back-to-back victories to take a sizable overall win.
Both players intermittently posted about the games on X:
biggest streamed poker game in history starting soon
don’t know exact sum yet, let’s see how high he’s willing to go
They settled on €5 million. Jungleman rallied from an early deficit to win, even the series 2-2, and take the lead in overall money won by €2 million.
They rematched with the same stakes almost immediately. The stream ballooned to as many as 15,000 viewers as word spread of the historic battle. Jungleman he dominated from the start and never let Ketola get a foothold.
The final match was the largest yet, with a €6 million buy-in for each player. While Ketola would put up more of a fight, he would drop the this match as well to end the day on a four-match losing skid. Without accounting for the vig, Ketola lost €13 million, or just over $15 million.
“Enjoy the donation,” he said after Cates dragged the final pot. “I go to sleep now.”
High-Profile Streamer Ketola Logs Second Straight Massive Loss
Ketola, a little known name in the poker world at this time last year, seems to have a penchant for both nosebleed heads-up matches and escalating stakes. Kayhan Mokri had beaten him out of €2 million prior to the Jungleman match, and Ketola pushed hard for a rematch at €5 million, only for Mokri to decline.
lol rip ~$19m in one sitting
worth the content though
— Monarch (@Monarch) August 20, 2025
Ketola runs a streaming channel with more than 20,000 subscribers. He has posted varied content there, including poker, chess, and video games.
He suggested on X that there will be more high stakes duels to come in the near future with more planning and production:
yeah this is just kind of a trial run
need to build a proper team for the future
Some viewers gave plaudits to Jungleman for playing the situation perfectly:
Classic hustler. Lose the two “small” 1m matches. Get the kid to play bigger and bigger as you ripped him apart. Congrats on the massive win.
Still, if Jungleman was playing it coy, he extended that facade to his social media accounts. He posted about the stress of the matches midway through while hinting that he had sold a large chunk of his action.
“I will say the spotlight isn’t for the faint of heart,” he wrote. “It’s not losing my own money that is the most stressful.”
