When Isildur1, aka Viktor Blom finally revealed his identity to the world of online poker – this was just at start of 2011 after Poker Stars made him an offer he could obviously not refuse. This 20 year old kid was revealed at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure as the newest sponsored member of their team. It turns out that at the time, when asked what he thought his best game was heads-up matching and multi-tables. We thought “yes, right – why don’t you prove it kid?”, so this seems to be exactly what he has done. He is proving his point and proving to be the poker phenom which most experts are saying he is.
Yesterday we were biting our nails in anticipation of his meeting with Daniel Negreanu; Negreanu has been itching to take him on after Blom put away Tony G, Daniel Cates, and Eugene Katchalov in the PokerStars SuperStar Showdown. The only heads-up match in this series Blom has not won so far was the first. This was held on December 19th, 2010 against Isaac “philivey2694″ Haxton, where Blom came out -$41,701. He won $44,280 from Tony G on the 2nd January 2011, $51,196 from Daniel “w00ki3z” Cates on the 30th January and on the 13th February 2011; Blom took $111,750 from Eugene Katchalov. He must be improving at his game because he just dismantled Negreanu for a total of $150,000 in four hours and 1,439 Hands.
The way this heads-up match is structured is in online poker and across four tables of $50/$100 or higher no-limit hold’em and/or pot-limit Omaha; depending what the players prefer, so it is a multi-tabling match. Each player starts out with a bankroll of $150 000 and they play over 2 500 hands. At the end of the 2 500 hands, the winner is the player with the most money in their bankroll. In this particular match; Blom and Negreanu were scheduled to play two matches over 2 consecutive Sundays, the first being yesterday the 20th March and the next the following week. The only way one player can win over the other before the total hand count is up, is if they manage to take their entire bankroll – in this instance $150 000. This is exactly what happened yesterday and now we are wondering if Negreanu will come back for more next Sunday, although he has tweeted that he will?
Daniel Negreanu is not really an online poker player, he is a live tournament kind of guy, but he was given time to practice and felt he had a handle on the game. He expressed excitement before the match as the competition intrigued him and was not concerned in the least as he said he quickly adjusted to the speed of the game. Blom and Negreanu chose to play four heads-up NLHE (no limit hold ‘em) tables. So far Blom’s profit from this competition for just four days work on a Sunday over three months has been $315,525. Not bad for a 20 year old kid from Sweden, but this boy’s a really big spender at the online poker tables.