Ansii Tuulivirda “ASA“

Birthplace
Lahti, Finland

Hometown
Helsinki, Finland

Total Winnings
$10,400

Friendship can take a person a lot of places. For Ansii Tuulivirda, it took him to a World Poker Tour final table. For most of his life, he focused on two things: numbers and paint. While studying at his Finland university, he kept his mind on economics. When not worried about making good grades, he was a warrior. He and friend Juha Helppi were both championship paintball players in their home country. One day, though, a little bit of friendship took both men a long way from home.

Helppi was already an accomplished poker player and he'd spent a few months teaching his paintball buddy how to fight on the felt as well as he did on the paintball course. When Helppi was making plans to go to the first WPT Aruba Classic on the Dutch Caribbean island, he asked Tuulivirda if he wanted to go. At first it might have seemed a silly concept. After all, Tuulivirda's chances of success after three months of play had to seem pretty slim. Nonetheless, friendship is friendship and Tuulivirda boarded a plane for Aruba. A few days later, Tuulivirda and Helppi took their friendship all the way to the final table and a heads-up match that eventually saw the teacher best his student.

Unlike Helppi, who is now one of Finland's best-known pros, Tuulivirda's $10,000 in winnings did not propel him to a life in the poker world. In fact, since then, he's not shown up on the winner's lists of a major tournament. Nonetheless, he has a story to tell and a tale of friendship that few people can tell. And who knows? There may be a day Tuulvirda shows back up at the poker tables to show everybody what he has learned since his time in Aruba.