The Railbird Report: A Close Up Look at the Insane Swings of Viktor "Isildur1" Blom
It was October 2009 when out of nowhere the account "Isildur1" appeared on Full Tilt Poker. He started to play the highest stakes and took on the biggest names in poker. It was going to be the biggest upswing the poker world had ever seen. Playing against the likes of Patrik Antonius, Phil Ivey, and Tom Dwan, sometimes all at once, a new sensation was born and railbirds were pulling all-nighters to witness the action.
What followed was probably the biggest downswing in online poker history, as his opponents started to figure him out and the "Isildur1" account started to lose big. It wasn't the first time someone had run up a bankroll and it certainly wasn't the first time someone crashed and burned. But where others were never to be seen again after such a rollercoaster, it was "Isildur1" battling back to get in the black again. He lost some and he won some but remained a fixture at the highest stakes for the months to come.
By the time PokerStars signed him nearing the end of 2010, most people had already figured out it was the relatively unknown Swede Viktor Blom behind the account. The reveal at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure that year wasn't a total shocker, but still, the world had finally a face to go with their idolized nickname. The fact he wasn't into doing interviews only grew his status as a legend of the online world.
What followed has been well documented. We've written plenty of articles on Viktor "Isildur1" Blom and all the crazy swings he endured during his poker career. To this day, though, we never combined his play on both PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker and fully grasped how big the swings have actually been. Time to change that! We plotted the graph for all of his play on the highest stakes at PokerStars and Full Tilt, with the data courtesy of HighStakesDB. Data on his swings on the untracked sites as amongst others "blom90", were unfortunately not available.
After an excellent 2015, things have gone mostly downhill in 2016 so far. Blom has lost hundreds of thousands of dollars and is currently ranked as the biggest losing player with a deficit of $636,951. The last two weeks have been good, though, and a small upswing can be seen in the above graph. Let's see if he can hold up this streak and turn things around for the year, as "Isildur1" at the highest stakes is still the pinnacle for all online railbirds!
Last Week's Biggest Pots Online
The biggest pot this week came from a $100/$200-table where "fjutekk" and Van "Sirens" Marcus squared off in pot-limit Omaha. Big blind wise the biggest pot came from a $50/$100 PLO game between "TILTMENOT" and Viktor "Isildur1" Blom, where the two got 300 "bigs" each in. Take a look at the three biggest pots online this week.
1) "fjutekk" Wins a $62,865 Pot (314 big blinds) versus Van "Sirens" Marcus
($100/$200 PLO Heads Up)
It was "fjutekk" first to act and he made it $500 to go from the button. His opponent, Aussie Van "Sirens" Marcus three-bet to $1,580.
"fjutekk" four-bet to $4,820 and Sirens had $14,540 in the middle soon enough.
The shove by "fjutekk" followed and Marcus called for $31,352.50 total.
| player | hand | equity | (chop) |
|---|---|---|---|
| "fjutekk" | A♦K♠Q♠A♥ | 70.67% | (2.61%) |
| Van "Sirens" Marcus | A♠8♠Q♥10♠ | 26.72% | (2.61%) |
Things weren't looking too good for Marcus. The 9♠8♦K♣ flop hit both players, the 4♠ gave each of them a flush draw, and the 5♦ on the river was a blank. No luck for "Sirens" who was forced to reload to continue.
2) "TILTMENOT" Wins a $60,844 Pot (608 big blinds) versus Viktor "Isildur1" Blom
($50/$100 PLO Heads Up)
Viktor "Isildur1" Blom started the hand with a stack of 1,212 big blinds, like the good old days. Just now it wasn't a $500/$1,000 Ivey Thunderdome table, but a $50/$100 match against regular "TILTMENOT" who was sitting on $30,000.
"TILTMENOT" opened for $300 and Blom three-bet to $900. "TILTMENOT" four-bet to $2,700 and Blom called to grow the pot to $5,400.
The flop came 10♦4♥3♠ and Blom check-called a bet of $2,914.30. With now $11,228.60 in the middle, the J♣ hit the turn. Blom checked again and "TILTMENOT" bet pot, leaving himself $13,582 behind. Blom shoved all in and "TILTMENOT" called.
| player | hand | equity on 10♦4♥3♠J♣ | (chop) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Viktor "Isildur1" Blom | 4♠J♦A♦9♠ | 65% | (17.50%) |
| "TILTMENOT" | K♦J♠9♣A♠ | 17.50% | (17.50%) |
With his two pair, Blom held a healthy lead over "TILTMENOT". They ran the river twice, and both times "TILTMENOT" would hit a king to win the entire pot; K♥, K♠.
3) Viktor "Isildur1" Blom and "JayP-AA" Win in $59,729 Pot (597 big blinds) versus Van "Sirens" Marcus
($50/$100 PLO 5-handed)
From first position, "fjutekk" folded and "JayP-AA" raised his cutoff to $450. Van "Sirens" Marcus on the button, who started the hand with a stack of $25,440, three-bet to $1,600.
Small blind Viktor "Isildur1" Blom started the hand with a stack of $8,550 and made the call. David "Bullitos" van der Weele folded his big blind and action was back on "JayP-AA", who four-bet to $6,600. Marcus committed himself with a raise to $21,600 (leaving himself just $3,839 behind) and Blom called all in. "JayP-AA" pushed and Marcus called all in as well for $25,439 total.
| player | hand | equity |
|---|---|---|
| "JayP-AA" | J♥10♥A♦K♦ | 35,87% |
| Van "Sirens" Marcus | Q♣A♥5♠A♠ | 35,21% |
| Viktor "Isildur1" Blom | 7♣9♠5♦8♠ | 28,63% |
While Marcus had the aces, it was "JayP-AA" in front with his double suited broadway cards. That all changed as the flop came 8♣9♣9♥, giving Blom a full house. The 7♦ on the turn made "JayP-AA" a straight, and the J♦ on the river didn't change a thing. Blom won the main pot and "JayP-AA" was slid the side pot.
Online High Stakes Action Last Week
| (user)name | hands | profit/loss | profit/loss 2016 | profit/loss all time | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Winning Players | |||||
| 1 | Timofey "Trueteller" Kuznetsov | 8,995 | +$94,441 | - | - |
| 2 | Sergey "St1ckman" Vasiliev | 3,147 | +$88,503 | - | - |
| 3 | Ravenswood13 | 4,725 | +$88,266 | - | - |
| 4 | Zhou Chun "samrostan" Lei | 9,234 | +$87,147 | - | - |
| 5 | fjutekk | 1,280 | +$74,283 | - | - |
| 6 | RaúlGonzalez | 1,138 | +$67,404 | - | - |
| 7 | Mikael "ChaoRen160" Thuritz | 800 | +$61,410 | +$64,079 | +$924,627 |
| 8 | Dan "w00ki3z." Cates | 5,996 | +$60,118 | -$123,110 | +$1,141,044 |
| 9 | Mike "gordo16" Gorodinsky | 5,552 | +$44,373 | +$8,435 | -$327,647 |
| 10 | Viktor "Isildur1" Blom | 11,824 | +$37,503 | -$636,951 | +$1,364,010 |
| Losing Players | |||||
| 1 | bodamos | 1,165 | -$155,921 | -$350,078 | -$1,677,200 |
| 2 | Sami "Lrslzk" Kelopuro | 7,136 | -$124,784 | - | - |
| 3 | Van "Sirens" Marcus | 919 | -$70,223 | -$73,190 | +$100,502 |
| 4 | Katya_18 | 1,386 | -$67,605 | - | - |
| 5 | CooL1992 | 506 | -$60,876 | - | - |
| 6 | 1nvoker | 1,110 | -$57,770 | - | - |
| 7 | brights88 | 8,329 | -$55,798 | -$129,877 | -$139,128 |
| 8 | Crisper | 2,836 | -$54,357 | -$60,146 | -$59,153 |
| 9 | TILTMENOT | 1,557 | -$46,744 | -$268,854 | -$13,047 |
| 10 | Jens "Fresh_oO_D" Lakemeier | 10,654 | -$45,896 | -$73,988 | -$288,239 |
The 2016 Leaderboard
From the top 3 biggest winners, Ben "Sauce123" Sulsky was the only one to play this week. He raked 724 hands, netting himself $30,117 in the process to strengthen his lead over both Andres "Educa-p0ker" Artinano and Dani "supernova9" Stern as biggest winner of 2016.
Viktor "Isildur1" Blom played thousands of hands this week, and made some decent profit to slim down his loss for the year to $636,951. Alex "Kanu7" Millar didn't show his face at the $25/$50 or higher tables according to HighStakesDB. "candela2005" lost a little bit this week and remains in third position.
| (user)name | hands 2016 | profit/loss 2016 | profit/loss per hand 2016 | profit/loss all time | ↑/↓ this week | most played game 2016 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Winning players | |||||||
| 1 | Ben "Sauce123" Sulsky | 54,862 | +$854,238 | +$15.57 | +$4,891,441 | ↑ | 8-game |
| 2 | Andres "Educa-p0ker" Artinano | 27,159 | +$729,389 | +$26.87 | +$1,150,807 | - | NLHM |
| 3 | Dani "supernova9" Stern | 22,672 | +$373,620 | +$16.47 | -$60,841 | - | PLO |
| Losing players | |||||||
| 1 | Viktor "Isildur1" Blom | 115,275 | -$636,951 | -$5.52 | +$1,364,010 | ↑ | 8-game |
| 2 | Alex "Kanu7" Millar | 24,885 | -$607,654 | -$24.41 | +$2,652,937 | - | NLHM |
| 3 | "candela2005" | 5,089 | -$455,918 | -$89.58 | -$1,360,117 | ↓ | NLHM |
The above top three of biggest winners and losers in online poker for 2016 and the top 10 biggest winners and losers online for the last two weeks only consist of PokerStars accounts that haven't opted out with HighStakesDB.com.
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