The Online Railbird Report: Ben Tollerene and Viktor Blom Win $1 Million in 48 Hours

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Mar 08, 2013 7 min read Last updated Jan 19, 2021

There has been some big action on both PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker this week, with the latter site featuring big winners in Ben “Bttech86” Tollerene and Viktor “Isildur1” Blom, both of whom won over a million dollars.

Tollerene finished as the week’s biggest winner with $1,385,130 in profit, which came in just 2,215 hands over 26 sessions. Not far behind was Blom, who banked $1,107,438 in 8,481 hands over 87 sessions. Other players who booked decent wins on FTP were Alexander “PostFlopAction” Kostritsyn (+$622,803 in 123 sessions/2,764 hands) and Ben “Sauce1234” Sulsky (+$401,203 in 32 sessions/3,119 hands), while “1Il|1Il|1il|” finished as the biggest winner on PokerStars with $319,831 (87 sessions/4,193 hands) in profit.

On the flip side, it was a disastrous week for Hac “trex313” Dang (rumored to be “1Il|1Il|1il|” on PokerStars), who finished as the biggest loser after dropping $935,887 in 2,980 hands over 30 sessions. He was followed down the list by Tom “durrrr” Dwan (-$572,591 in 129 sessions/9,688 hands), Gus Hansen (-$503,450 in 152 sessions/8,856 hands), Kyle “KPR16” Ray (-$472,238 in 13 sessions/2,254 hands) and Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies (-$470,636 in 15 sessions/431 hands).

$200/$400 PLO Action on PokerStars Brings February to a Close

On Thursday, Feb. 28, a three-hour session of $200/$400 pot-limit Omaha spread in the early morning over on PokerStars and saw “1Il|1Il|1il|” walk away a $271,000 winner after battling it out against “patpatman”, Jen “Jeans89” Kyllönen and Vladimir “GVOZDIKA55” Shchemelev.

In the biggest pot “1Il|1Il|1il|” played on Feb. 28, action was three-handed when Kyllönen ($39,400) opened for $900 on the button, Shchemelev ($65,677) folded from the small blind, and “1Il|1Il|1il|” ($60,090.25) three-bet to $2,900 from the big. Kyllönen made the call, the flop fell 9♠6♥4♣ and “1Il|1Il|1il|” check-called a bet of $4,400. When the Q♦ turned, “1Il|1Il|1il|” checked for a second time and Kyllönen fired out $14,795. This time “1Il|1Il|1il|” responded with a check-raise to $50,400, and Kyllönen called off his remaining $17,305.

“1Il|1Il|1il|”: K♥10♥K♣J♣
Kyllönen: A♥9♥6♠3♠

Kyllönen got it in good with two pair but needed to dodge the straight outs of “1Il|1Il|1il|.” Unfortunately for him, the J♥ river completed the straight and “1Il|1Il|1il|” was pushed the $78,995 pot.

While that pot was nice, it wasn’t as big as the ones that came from the $400/$800 PLO tables on Full Tilt Poker. While that game didn’t results in any big winners, it did produce two six-figure pots.

Hand #1: Action was three-handed when Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies ($120,239.50) opened for $3,250 on the button, Hac “trex313” Dang ($166,387) folded the small blind, and “patpatpanda” ($234,940.29) called from the big. When the flop came down the Q♥A♦6♣, “patpatpanda” check-called a bet of $4,400, and the 2♦ appeared on the turn. “Patpatpanda” check-called another bet, this time $12,800, and the 5♥ completed the board on the river. “patpatpanda” proceeded to check-call a pot-sized bet of $41,750 with the Q♦Q♣9♦8♦ for a set of queens, which was good enough to win the $125,249 pot as Sahamies could only muster two pair with the A♥Q♠9♠4♦.

Hand #2: The lineup was the same when Sahamies ($56,389.50) opened for $3,250 and Dang ($168,037) and “patpatpanda” ($297,139.29) called from the small and big blinds, respectively. All three players then checked the 9♦6♦2♣ flop, Dang led out for $10,200 on the 8♥ turn, and “patpatpanda” folded. Sahamies responded with a raise to $40,800, Dang made it $142,800 to go, and the Finn called off his remaining $12,339.50. The 3♣ completed the board on the river and Sahamies revealed the 9♠Q♠10♣8♣ for two pair, but it was no good as Dang rolled over 2♠10♠7♦10♦ for the nuts and the $116,178 pot. Dang ended up winning $90,000 on FTP that day, while Sahamies dropped $199,500.

Dwan Kicks Off March in Style

On Saturday, March 2, Tom “durrrr” Dwan won $272,000 at the $150/$300 No-Limit 2-7 Triple Draw tables on Full Tilt Poker, enough to make him the day’s biggest winner. Most of his profit came from Hac “trex313” Dang, who ended up dropping $198,400.

As if that wasn’t enough, Dwan returned the following day and added another $342,000, playing a combination of no-limit hold’em, 8-Game and 2-7 triple draw. About $100K of that came off Dang as their game ran into Sunday morning, but the rest came half a day later when he played 8-Game against the likes of Gus Hansen, “patpatpanda”, and Alexander “PostFlopAction” Kostritsyn and NLHE against “Sanlker”.

The match against “Sanlker” lasted about 11 hours and resulted in some big hands. In the largest, Dwan ($103,198.03) opened for $1,200 on the button and “Sanlker” ($96,256.30) called, leading to a 2♦4♥3♥ flop. “Sanlker” led out for $1,608 and then three-bet to $14,000 after Dwan had raised to $5,600. Dwan responded by moving all in for $101,998.10 and “Sanlker” called off his remaining $81,056.30, which created a pot worth $192,512.

Dwan: 6♥4♣
“Sanlker”: A♣5♠

Dwan had flopped top pair with a gutshot straight draw, but he was far behind the A♣5♠ flopped straight of “Sanlker”. According to the PokerNews Odds Calculator, “Sanlker” was an 80.51% favorite while Dwan had just an 18.59% chance of winning the pot. The turn and river were run twice, but neither the 8♦/A♠ on the first run nor the 10♦/6♦ on the second helped Dwan and the pot was pushed to “Sanlker.”

In another sizable pot, Dwan ($88,696) opened for $1,200 and then called when “Sanlker” ($107,087.44) three-bet to $4,000. Dwan then called a bet of $5,360 on the 5♦6♣4♠ flop, the 4♦ turned, and “Sanlker” led out for $12,542.39. Dwan moved all in for $79,336 and “Sanlker” called the additional $66,793.60.

Dwan: 8♦2♦
“Sanlker”: A♣A♥

Dwan was drawing to both a straight and a flush, and he had two chances to hit it as the river was run twice. The J♦ on the first gave him the flush and guaranteed him half the pot, but it was the 7♥ on the second that gave him a straight and the entire $177,392 pot.

Blom and Tollerene Both Win $1 Million in 48 Hours

From March 4-5, Viktor “Isildur1” Blom won $460,000 playing two sessions of 2-7 Triple Draw and one of $2,000/$4,000 fixed-limit Omaha Hi/Lo (FLO8). Nearly $350,000 of that came off Alex “Alexonmoon” Luneau in the former game and $118,000 in the latter against Kyle “KPR16” Ray on Monday evening.

After losing all but $50,000 of that back, Blom returned to the FLO8 tables and took another $326,000 off Ray in a five-hour session that covered approximately 1,000 hands. As the clock rolled over to Tuesday, the Swede took $158,000 from Sebastien “Seb86” Sabic at the $1,500/$3,000 2-7 Triple Draw tables and about $200,000 from “SallyWoo” at the FLO8 tables.

From there, Blom opened a $250/$500 pot-limit Omaha table and that’s when things heated up. Before long, players like Ben “Bttech86” Tollerene, Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies, Hac “trex313” Dang, Tom “durrrr” Dwan, and Ben “Sauce1234” Sulsky were all seated in the game. It looked as if Sulsky, who finished as 2012’s biggest online winner, was going to pull away with the match, as he was up $600,000 in just 90 minutes, but he went on to give all but $57,000 of it back to Tollerene and Blom, who finished the day with $905,200 and $791,600 wins, respectively.

That put both players over $1 million in profit in a 48 hours and had huge ramifications on the yearly leaderboard, which you can view below. It’s also worth noting that Dwan ended up losing more than $900,000 on the day, which resulted in him becoming the week’s second-biggest loser.

Needless to say, there were some huge pots at those stakes, and Tollerene managed to snag three pots worth over $200,000 apiece. In his largest, action was six-handed when action folded around to Tollerene ($156,082.50) on the button and he raised to $1,250. Sulsky ($58,647) then folded the small blind, Dang ($160,308.50) three-bet to $4,600 from the big and Tollerene called from the button, leading to a Q♠9♥8♣ flop. Dang proceeded to check-call a bet of $8,040, and then check-called a bet of $20,904 on the 6♣ turn. When the Q♣ completed the board on the river, Dang led out for $23,500 and Tollerene immediately raised to $111,111. Dang called but mucked as soon as Tollerene rolled over Q♦9♣10♣6♠ for the nuts. Ship the $290,157 pot to Tollerene.

While Dang took the lost that pot, he took down one that was even bigger. It happened in a heads-up match between Blom ($164,338.50) and Dang ($249,883.60) when the latter opened for $1,100 on the button only to have the former three-bet to $3,500. The betting didn’t stop there as Dang four-bet to $10,700, Blom five-bet to $32,300, and Dang six-bet to $97,100. Blom called and then moved all in for his remaining $67,238.50 on the 9♣J♣8♠ flop. Dang called with the A♣10♣7♠A♠ flopped straight, and he was well out in front of Blom’s K♥Q♦9♦7♥. The 4♦ turn was no help to the Swede, and neither was the A♦ river. With that, Dang was pushed the $328,677 pot.

Biggest Winners/Losers (Full Tilt Poker)

Week’s biggest winners (2/28-3/6): Ben “Bttech86” Tollerene (+$1,385,130), Viktor “Isildur1” Blom (+$1,107,438), Alexander “PostFlopAction” Kostritsyn (+$622,803), Ben “Sauce1234” Sulsky (+$401,203), “1Il|1Il|1il|”* (+$319,831)

Week’s biggest losers: Hac “trex313” Dang (-$935,887), Tom “durrrr” Dwan (-$572,591), Gus Hansen (-$503,450), Kyle “KPR16” Ray (-$472,238), Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies (-$470,636), Sebastien “Seb86” Sabic (-$456,984), Alex “Alexonmoon” Luneau (-$426,254), “patpatpanda” (-$382,692) Jen “Jeans89” Kyllönen* (-$177,094)

Year’s biggest winners: Alexander “PostFlopAction” Kostritsyn (+$3,029,412), Ben “Bttech86” Tollerene (+$2,318,032), Viktor “Isildur1” Blom (+$2,029,785), Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond (+$1,797,335), “SallyWoo” (+$1,750,844), Tom “durrrr” Dwan (+$1,184,985), “1Il|1Il|1il|”* (+$966,669), Ronny “ronnyr37617” Kaiser (+$873,763), Kyle “KPR16” Ray (+$801,657)

Year’s biggest losers: Ben “Sauce1234” Sulsky (-$1,951,188), “patpatpanda” (-$1,330,885), Gus Hansen (-$1,282,940), Scott “mastrblastr” Seiver (-$1,191,393), “punting-peddler” (-$1,099,064), Phil “Polarizing” Ivey (-$1,069,156), Alex “IReadYrSoul” Millar (-$1,009,788), “CRAIN85” (-$925,500), Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies (-$794,289), “Johnbest” (-$793,503)

*Denotes PokerStars

_{Data, hands and replayer obtained from HighStakesDB.com}

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