Full Tilt Poker is certainly ramping up the anticipation as its rise from the dead date draws near. On Monday, the former second largest online poker room in the world announced that it has added two more pros to its roster: Tom “durrrr” Dwan and Viktor “Isildur1” Blom.
Dwan and Blom, who join Gus Hansen as “The Professionals,” were two of the main attractions at Full Tilt a few years ago, competing against each other – as well as Hansen, Patrik Antonius, Phil Ivey, and others – at the poker room’s highest stakes tables. Many poker fans logged on each night not to play poker, but to simply railbird the nosebleed stakes games.
Tom Dwan was himself a sponsored pro of Full Tilt before it disappeared after Black Friday and was a mainstay on popular poker television shows such as “Poker After Dark” and “High Stakes Poker.” He began to take his poker skills offline a few years ago, trying his hand at live tournaments. In 2007, he finished 4th in the World Poker Tour (WPT) World Poker Finals, winning $324,244. Just a couple months later, he placed 2nd in the $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em event at the WPT Borgata Winter Open, good for $226,100. In 2010, Dwan was the center of a gigantic multi-player bracelet bet at the World Series of Poker, making some of the best players in the world sweat whenever he began amassing chips in a tournament. He came very close to making a number of players much poorer, ultimately missing a bracelet by one spot, finishing as runner-up in a $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em event.
Viktor Blom became an online poker legend in 2009 when he routinely splashed around chips on Full Tilt’s high stakes tables night after night. Nobody know who he was, only knowing him by his screen name, “Isildur1.” According to PokerTableRatings.com, Isildur1 was involved in the ten largest pots in online poker history, winning four for a combined $3.5 million.
In January 2011, PokerStars announced at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) that it was signing Isildur1 to its team, officially revealing him as Viktor Blom. He left PokerStars in August of this year; while he gave no reason for his departure, it was widely speculated that he was going to sign with Full Tilt when it was resurrected.
At this year’s PCA, Blom won the $100,000 Super High Roller Event and finished 14th in the $50,000 Poker Players Championship at the World Series of Poker. This May, Blom dominated the PokerStars Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP), winning two of the first three events.
In a press release, Full Tilt Poker’s Head of Marketing Sarne Lightman said of the signings, “The game of poker is always evolving. Through our continual innovations, Full Tilt Poker is proud to have been at the forefront of that evolution. In choosing our Pros we approached the three poker players whose unique and innovative styles have had the most impact on how modern poker is played.”