Hailing from Australia, Martin Bradstreet is a professional high stakes poker player known to the online poker community as “alexeimartov” (PokerStars) and “MagicNinja” (Full Tilt Poker). Martin has been grinding away at the high stakes tables for several years now, but really started to make waves in the middle of 2011 when his bankroll at PokerStars soared from around $65k in April to finally top the $1m mark by the end of the year.
Video of Martin’s Band
Bradstreet seems to have had less luck at Full Tilt Poker under his MagicNinja moniker, having lost a grand total of $400k between February of 2007 and May 2011, but the moment his luck turned sweet at PokerStars, the “MagicNinja” stopped playing cash games on FTP altogether.
Like many of his young fellow poker pros, Martin started out as a serious StarCraft competitor. It wasn’t long before he noticed a lot of his comrades switching to online poker, several of them realizing phenomenal success in the field. Not one to be left behind, Bradstreet dipped his own fingers in the honey pot and discovered the road to a professional poker career.
After seeing such unreliable success as MagicNinja on Full Tilt Poker, Bradstreet finally decided to change up his tactics. He joined Deuces Cracked, a popular online poker training website, and over the next few years developed the necessary skills to play online high stakes cash games without the bereft downswings that had plagued him for so long.
The Australian poker player signed on with PokerStars as “alexeimartov”, which also happens to be the name of his band, and very slowly worked his way to a substantiated profit. Between January and March of 2011, his bankroll climbed from the negatives up to $134k. That slacked off a bit going into April, dropping to about $65k, but picked right back up in the same month and continued right through to October. Martin “alexeimartov” Bradwstreet was brandishing the fiercest skills we’ve seen from him to date, slashing his way through $25/$50 and $50/$100 Pot Limit Omaha (PLO) tables like Paula Deen’s teeth on a stick of butter.
Bradstreet’s success continued throughout the rest of 2011, peaking with a bankroll of $1.02 million to close out the year. His largest single-hand pot win occurred on August 25, 2011 when he swooped in and snagged a $105,227 pot from Benny “toweliestar” Spindler with two pair, Jacks over 3s. Spindler couldn’t let go of A-A-10-10 in the hole, but without any help on the flop, turn or river, Bradstreet easily collected the pot.
Martin also scored a $129,633 pot on November 22, 2011, but it was split with “GARFIELD25” when both players wielded an A-high straight. Other notable players in that hand were Ilari “Ilari FIN” Sahamies (aka Ziigmund at FTP) and the 21-year-old Finnish poker pro, Jens “Jeans89” Kyllonen; just a few of Bradstreet’s more common opponents on the high stakes PLO tables at PokerStars.
There has been no indication of whether Martin Bradstreet has any aspirations to join the live poker tournament circuit. At this time, the young Australian, now in his mid-twenties, continues to build a lofty bankroll and fine tune his talents on the virtual felt before deciding which road he will take next.