As I have probably written before, while this coronavirus pandemic is awful, it does come with its silver linings. For us in the poker world, one such silver lining has been the increase in online poker traffic and, in turn, the explosion of online tournament series. Much of the talk has surrounded the sheer size of these series, from the duration to the number of events to the insane amounts of guaranteed prize money. One thing we perhaps have not talked enough about, however, is who is actually performing well in said series. So let’s do that right and the person we will talk about is Viktor “Isildur1” Blom, who is absolutely destroying the Super High Roller Bowl (SHRB) on partypoker.
Like the good, old days
The Super High Roller Bowl is normally a live tournament event, but like all other live tournaments in the last couple months, it was moved online. And that must have suited Blom just fine, as his background is one of online poker dominance.
Over the weekend, Blom won SHRB #21 – High Roller: $500K guaranteed 8-Max for $195,250. It was his third win of the Super High Roller Bowl and sixth cash.
Since then, Blom also finished seventh in SHRB #22 – High Roller: $500K guaranteed 6-Max, pocketing $25,025. He has another couple deep finishes in the last couple days, as well, even if he didn’t cash in those tournaments.
All told, Blom has won $1,552,025 in the online Super High Roller Bowl. Here is a breakdown of his cashes (credit to the partypoker blog for putting them all in one place, minus the SHRB #22 score):
SHRB #02 – Super High Roller: $1M Guaranteed 8-Max – 2nd place, $320,625
SHRB #08 – Super High Roller: $1M Guaranteed 8-Max – 2nd place, $365,500
SHRB #09 – High Roller: $500K Guaranteed 8-Max – 1st place, $213,750
SHRB #14 – Super High Roller: $1M Guaranteed 8-Max – 1st Place, $407,500
SHRB #16 – High Roller: $500K Guaranteed 6-Max – 7th Place, $24,375
SHRB #21 – High Roller: $500K Guaranteed 8-Max – 1st Place, $195,250
SHRB #22 – High Roller: $500K Guaranteed 6-Max – 7th Place, $25,025
One of poker’s biggest pre-Black Friday stories
Those who have been around the online poker community for a good decade or so may remember the legend of Blom. He burst onto the scene in September 2009 at age 19, playing on Full Tilt Poker. He had played for years before that – starting when he was several years underage – but it was on Full Tilt in 2009 that he became known.
At that time, the real-life identities of almost all of the top online players were known, but not so with the mysterious Isildur1. Suddenly, you had this guy who nobody knew multi-tabling the nosebleed stakes games against the likes of Phil Ivey, Patrik Antonius, and Tom Dwan. He was ultra-aggressive, seemingly not caring at all about the value of a dollar.
At one point, he had been involved in the top ten largest pots in online poker history. He was on the wrong side of half of them, including a $1,356,947 pot against Antonius.
Isildur1 was once up about $6 million in November of that year, but in mid-December he was down $2 million. $4.2 million of those losses were in one session against Brian Hastings. It was later discovered that Hastings had shared hand histories with Brian Townsend and Cole South, resulting in him having some of his Full Tilt privileges rescinded for a month.
It was a momentous occasion when the veil was lifted and Isildur1 was revealed to be Viktor Blom at the 2011 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, when Stars announced him as one of their sponsored pros. He left Stars for Full Tilt the following year.
