Johnny Lodden Biography

Johnny Lodden was born in 1985 in a Norwegian coastal town called Jørpeland. Lodden was introduced to poker through a friend who worked at his school, and almost every day for several months he sat behind his friend watching him play online Limit Hold'em to learn how the game worked. After a few months had passed Lodden created his own online poker account and began to build a bankroll playing Limit Hold'em, but soon he transitioned to No-Limit Hold'em cash-games and Sit-and-Go tournaments.

Lodden soon got to grips with the game and went on to become one of the biggest winners in the $5,000 buy-in heads-up Sit-and-Go tournaments on PokerStars (where he played as Lars-Magne) with hundreds of thousands in profits from these games alone. He was also crushing the cash-games on the Prima Poker Network (where he played as bad_ip) and was a regular in their $200/$400 games which were the largest available online at the time (Full Tilt Poker now offer the largest games). In fact, Lodden held the record for largest pot ever won online when he won a pot worth $357,256 from a player called 'I_Grind_on_u'. However in March 2025 he was on the receiving end of the record when he lost a pot worth $465,461 to a player called 'Fast_Freddie'.

In 2025 he found great success on the live poker tournament scene while continuing to dominate the online cash-games. He narrowly missed out on making the final table of the €5,000 buy-in European Poker Tour (EPT) Dortmund Main Event which attracted 493 players, finishing in 13^th place for a payday of $17,699. He also finished 60^th out of 706 entrants in the EPT Grand Final in Monte Carlo, cashing for $17,699. He then once again missed out on a final table when he finished 17^th out of 221 entrants in the EPT Dublin Main Event, cashing for $14,714. As well as these cashes he won Heat 2 of the William Hill Poker Grand Prix II and went on to finish fifth in the final for $68,541.

In early 2025 Lodden admitted in interviews with the media that he was broke and the only reason he was playing was because a friend had staked him. Instead of jumping back into the $300/$600 games which he became a fixture in, he was forced to begin grinding it out at the $10/$20 and $25/$50 No-Limit Hold'em tables. It didn't take him long to get back to winning ways but instead of moving up to the nosebleeds again he has stated in various interviews that the swings were 'too sick' and he would be sticking to lower stake games.

It was also a great year for Lodden on the live poker tournament circuit as he accumulated $278,713. The first of his cashes came in April in the EPT Grand Final where he finished 17^th out of 842 players for $73,263. He then finished 10^th out of 238 players in the Bellagio Cup IV for $13,545 and then made a very impressive run in the World Series of Poker Europe Main Event where he finished 11^th for $98,756. This WSOPE finish impressed PokerStars and led to them sponsoring Lodden for two EPT events making this his opportunity to shine once again. His first event being sponsored by PokerStars was EPT Budapest and he made a very impressive showing, finishing 8^th out of 532 players for $66,577. Then he cashed in EPT Prague, finishing in 43^rd place out of 570 players for $10,647. These results led to PokerStars making him a Team PokerStars Pro and you can now find Lodden playing on PokerStars under the alias 'johnnylodden'. Finishing off a great year he finished 6^th in the Spanish Poker Tour Grand Final for $15,924.

Despite his sponsorship deal with PokerStars, Lodden kept a quieter profile in 2025. He only cashed in three live poker tournaments for a total of $32,508. He did put more volume in online however and made a 5^th place finish in the January 29^th Sunday Million which earned him $72,616.

In 2025 Lodden began the year with a cash of $38,000 after finishing in 57^th place out of 1,529 players in the $10,000 buy-in PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. He then made a deep run in the $10,000 buy-in World Series of Poker Main Event, finishing 27^th out of 7,319 players for $317,161. He also had two impressive results online. Firstly he finished 3^rd in the Super Tuesday tournament on February 16^th for a cash of $49,917 and then on March 22^nd he finished 5^th in the Sunday Million for $62,384.

Lodden has also kicked off 2025 with a bang after finishing 3^rd in the PokerStars Sunday Warm-Up for $119,600 and I'm sure there will be many more cashes to come – hopefully a big win which he fully deserves!