Towards the end of 2009, life was pretty sweet for high stakes online poker player Ilari Sahamies since he was in the midst of a massive upswing, and up $7 million in overall profits. Plus he was showing up on all of the poker TV shows, and many amateur players were trying to copy his swagger and trash talking.

Unfortunately for Sahamies, this was as good as things would get since his winnings came tumbling down in the following two months after the Finn lost over $3.5 million on Full Tilt Poker. And he continued a massive spiral that would see his winnings level-out around $830k before the FTP troubles began.

Interestingly enough, Sahamies seems back and better than ever in 2011. After being down over $800k on the PokerStars high stakes tables in July, Sahamies has gone on a big heater, which includes winning almost $2 million in the past three months. Currently, Sahamies’ PokerStars winnings sit at $1.4 million, and things don’t look to be slowing down any time soon for him. In the last week alone, “Ilari FIN” has pulled in $750k, and is the hottest player in poker.

With all of this being said, you have to wonder if 2011 is going to be the year of Ilari Sahamies. Assuming he keeps his current winning streak up, it’s a safe bet to say that he could be the biggest online poker winner if you don’t count the $2 million-plus that Gus Hansen has earned on Full Tilt Poker (the site is nearly defunct). Furthermore, Gavin Cochrane has tanked lately on PokerStars after being up almost $1.9 million, and now sits at $960k in overall winnings.

In any case, it will be fun to continue following Sahamies, and to see if he keeps up this torrid pace.