| Viktor Blom | |
|---|---|
| Nickname(s) | Isildur1 blom90 |
| Hometown | Sweden |
| Born | September 26, 1990 (age 21) |
| Information accurate as of 2011-04-06. | |
Viktor Blom (born September 26, 1990) is a Swedish high stakes online poker player, best known as Isildur1.[1] His rise to fame drew considerable audience around the poker world in late 2009,[2][3][4] taking part in all ten of the largest pots in online poker history.[5][6] In December 2010, it was announced that then-anonymous Isildur1 had joined Team PokerStars Pro. Blom's online identity was revealed by PokerStars on January 8, 2011 at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure.[1]
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Isildur1 first appeared at Full Tilt Poker on September 16, 2009, and remained largely unnoticed until November when he began playing well known professionals such as Tom Dwan, Phil Ivey, Brian Townsend, Cole South, and Patrik Antonius at stakes as high as $500/$1000.[4] He reached a career peak on November 15 with total winnings of $5 million.[7] By mid December, however, he was down $2 million net,[7] including an approximately $4 million loss to Brian Hastings on December 8, when the two played heads-up $500/$1,000 Pot-Limit Omaha for five hours.[8] With a few brief exceptions, Isildur1 did not appear on Full Tilt between his collapse in mid-December and his return in February 2010.[7]
According to Full Tilt's insider interview with Patrik Antonius, Isildur1 had a bankroll of approximately $2000 in January 2009. He built his bankroll to $1.4 million and began playing on Full Tilt in September. He first played Haseeb Qureshi, a high stakes regular, at the $100/$200 stakes. After 24 hours Isildur1 won almost $500,000. He disappeared and then resurfaced a month later and played Brian Townsend, Patrik Antonius, and Cole South at the $200/$400 to $500/$1000 tables and suffered a million dollar loss. A columnist on HighStakesDB, a website that monitors and tracks high stakes activity online, suggested that Isildur1 was overly aggressive, which could cost him playing against elite competition. Isildur1, however, answered critics by winning approximately $2 million back from Townsend and South during the last week of October 2009.
With a profit of $1M on Full Tilt, Isildur1 waited at six heads-up $500/$1000 No Limit Hold'em tables for any challenger willing to play for such stakes. His first opponent was Tom Dwan who is widely regarded as one of the top online heads-up players. They played six tables simultaneously with over a million dollars in play for one week. By the end of the week, Isildur1 had gone on the largest run in the history of online poker, winning approximately $5 million from Dwan, prompting Dwan to issue a live challenge to play Isildur1 at the Full Tilt Poker Durrrr Million Dollar Challenge.[9] He then challenged Antonius to a rematch the following day and won $1.6 million from him on November 15 and peaked with $5.98 million in earnings on Full Tilt.
Recently, he partnered with online poker site PokerStars and launched a four-table of heads-up cash game No Limit Hold'Em and Pot Limit Omaha "Superstar Showdown" challenge to anyone who is willing to play at stakes no lower than $50/$100 for 2,500 hands, similar to Tom Dwan's Durrrr Million dollar challenge.
Isildur1 challenged Phil Ivey, widely regarded as one of the best all-round players in the world, to play three tables heads-up no-limit Hold’em at $500/$1000 stakes. After a week of play Isildur1 incurred a $3.2 million loss to Ivey and stated in a subsequent interview that Ivey was the toughest opponent he ever played.
Antonius then challenged Isildur1 to a rematch in Omaha, a game in which Isildur1 admitted he lacked experience. Isildur1 lost $3 million to Antonius after playing for only one day, which at the time, was the largest single day gain and loss in the history of online poker. This record was broken a month later when Isildur1 played Brian Hastings. The following day they played a rematch in Omaha where Isildur1 won $2 million back from Antonius.
His winnings hovered at the $2 million mark until December 8, 2009 when he played Brian Hastings for five hours. Hastings managed to win $4.2 million from Isildur1, making it the largest gain and loss in a single day in the history of online poker to date.[10]
It was discovered afterward that Hastings, Townsend, and Cole South shared information about Isildur1's play over 30,000 hands. They engaged in activity which Full Tilt defined as "accessing or compiling information on other players beyond that which the user has personally observed through his or her own game play" after Townsend admitted to acquiring hands of Isildur1's play through Hastings which he spoke of during an interview with ESPN.[11][12] As a result, Townsend lost some of his privileges as a sponsored Full Tilt player (his "red pro status") for 30 days. Blom's play on Full Tilt Poker between September 2009 and October 2010 at stakes of 50/100 and above resulted in a loss of $2,630,230.[13]
A number of Isildur1’s regular opponents commented on him in the media buzz surrounding his collapse. On December 11, Ilari Sahamies appeared on Finnish radio show Radio Rock Korporaatio, saying, “He’s playing 9 tables at once against Patrik [Antonius], [Phil] Ivey, and durrrr [Tom Dwan] – the guy must be missing a chromosome.”[14] Also that day, the Full Tilt Academy released a video in which Patrik Antonius discussed Isildur1 with Phil Gordon.[14] Antonius, who won the largest online pot ever ($1.4 million) against Isildur1,[15] called him “extremely dangerous” because he constantly puts his opponents to difficult decisions. Antonius further opined that the mysterious Swede would return.[16]
The rise and fall of Isildur1 was on nearly every Top Stories of 2009 list, including those of Cardplayer, PokerNews.com, PokerNewsDaily.com, and pokerlistings.com.[2][17][18]
On December 22, 2009, PokerNews.com published an interview with Isildur1 about his loss to Brian Hastings, but Isildur1 again refused to reveal his identity.[19]