The Online Railbird Report Special Edition: Antonius Wins $2.9 Million from Isildur1 in Battle Royale
In one of the greatest heads-up battles in online poker history, Patrik Antonius halted “Isildur1’s” spectacular November run, relieving the young Swede of nearly $3 million over the course of a 2,189-hand, nine-hour match that ran from Monday evening to early Tuesday morning. Prior to that night, Isildur1 had climbed to the top of the list when it came to online profits for the year, topping out at $6 million after a bit more than a month of play at the nosebleed stakes. He took $3 million off Tom “durrrr” Dwan over the course of four sessions last week, and has clobbered Brian Townsend, Cole South, David Benyamine and Antonius for hundreds of thousands apiece, primarily at heads-up no-limit hold’em.
Isildur1 was beginning to seem so invincible that his list of takers at the highest limits was already drying up. With no challengers at the nosebleed stakes, Isildur1 spent most of Tuesday afternoon “slumming it” at the $50/100 pot-limit Omaha tables with Prahlad “SpiritRock” Friedman, Jani “KObyTAPOUT” Vilmunen, “harrington25,” and Harry “Ugotabanana” Kaczka. However, with Dwan in transit to London where he’ll be playing the Full Tilt Poker Durrrr Million Dollar Challenge over the next three days, Antonius saw an opportunity and decided to pounce. After some careful negotiation, Antonius convinced Isildur1 to play him at four tables of $500/1,000 pot-limit Omaha—arguably Isildur1’s weakest game at the highest stakes available.
Antonius immediately won a $200,000 pot, stacking Isildur1 off a buy-in on one of the first hands they played, Antonius turning a jack-high straight to crack Isildur1’s bottom two pair. That pot set the tone for the entire evening and only 30 minutes later Antonius shipped another monsterpotten when his A♦A♥9♣5♦ held up against Isildur1’s K♣K♠J♠5♠ in a $287,000 pot. Five minutes later, the two were tangled in a $408,000 pot, Antonius flopping a wheel with 9♣6♦4♦3♠ while Isildur1 turned a set of sevens. Isildur1 couldn’t fill up on the river, and less than 45 minutes into their match he was already stuck $500,000.
Antonius had ground out about another $100,000 in profits when the largest pot in online poker history unfolded. As reported yesterday by Garry Gates and Don Peters, Isildur1 led off the action with a $3,000 raise from the button and Antonius called from the big blind. Antonius check-raised Isildur1’s $5,000 bet to $21,000 on the Q♠7♥5♥ flop and Isildur1 made the call. The turn came the A♦ and Antonius took the lead, betting $48,000 only to have Isildur1 repot it to $192,000. Antonius shoved for $415,479 in total and Isildur1 made the call, turning over A♠K♠Q♦10♥ for top two pair and a straight draw. Antonius revealed A♥Q♣9♠6♥ — the same two pair but with a nut flush redraw and a smaller straight draw. The odds favored a split pot, but the 8♦ fell on the river, and the gutterball completed a nine-high straight for the Finn. Antonius raked in the monsterpotten to end all monsterpottens at $878,958.
The record-setting hand put Isildur1 down $1 million for the session and he asked Antonius if he was willing to switch up the game.
Isildur1: can we play some nl now and change back to this later ?
Isildur1: i play u this game all f nights
Antonius: sry im done for nl for awhile
Isildur1: what a joke
Antonius: i've lost millions in that game this year
Isildur1: yeah and i lost same at this game
Isildur1: and i even play u here
Antonius: yeah but its not just u who have beaten me in nl
Isildur1: and i asked before we started
Antonius: its been pretty much everyone
Isildur1: ok n1 say before we can play nl to
Antonius: i will give u some action i promise
Antonius: maybe we should play HA
Isildur1: is there 510 ha ?
Antonius: y
Antonius: i have two tables
Isildur1: ok 2 of those and one nl, one plo ?
Antonius: thats fine
Antonius: give me 5min
Isildur1: k
Although Isildur1 hopped over to the mixed HA games, he quickly discovered that he’d be playing pot-limit hold’em rather than no-limit hold’em at these tables. Given his tendency to massively overbet the river in large pots, pot-limit would hardly suit his style.
Isildur1: its pot limit
Isildur1: lets just play 2 of each ?
Antonius: lets play two HA and one plo one nl
Isildur1: but ha is pot limit ?
Antonius: y
Isildur1: why cant we just play 2 of each ?
Antonius: if u dont like it its fine
Antonius: two of each is fine
Isildur1: ok 2 of each then
The two sat down at two $500/1,000 heads-up no-limit hold'em tables and two $500/1,000 heads-up pot-limit Omaha tables, but the change in location didn’t do anything to halt Antonius’ run-good. He ground out another $400,000 over the course of the next hour, taking three substantial pot-limit Omaha pots and a $150,000 no limit hold'em pot where Isildur1 flopped top pair with 10♥8♣ and Antonius runner-runnered a flush with the lowly 2♥5♥. Although Isildur1 continued picking up his fair share of pots at the NLHE tables, Antonius dominated at pot-limit Omaha, where pots in the $400,000-$500,000 range were common.
Antonius took down two massive pots back-to-back around 11:15 p.m. EST, his kings-full besting Isildur1’s two pair in a $410,000 pot and a $354,000 pot in which Isildur1 folded on the river. At this point, Antonius was up a full $2 million, $1.1 million of it sitting on one pot-limit Omaha table. Clearly tilting and possibly hoping to “gambool” and erase some of his losses, Isildur1 asked Antonius to open up two more tables of pot-limit Omaha.
Isildur1: want to add2 plo tables ?
Antonius: i can only play 4 at the time
It only got worse for Isildur1 from there. A few $350K pots later, Antonius held stacks of $412,000, $549,000, $627,000 and $1.3 million across their four tables, good for an overall profit of $2.4 million. But this match was far from over.
The third-largest pot of the night came in at $572,000, Antonius leading off with a preflop raise to $3,000, Isildur1 three-betting to $9,000, and Antonius making the call. Isildur1 made it $14,000 to go on the 8♦7♦3♣ flop and Antonius came back at him with a raise to $60,000. The rest of their stacks went in, Isildur1 repotting to $198,000, Antonius setting him in with a $336,000 bet and Isildur1 calling off his remaining $78,996.
Antonius Q♥Q♦6♥5♦ (a pair of queens, a queen-high flush draw and an open-ended straight draw)
Isildur1 K♥K♦J♠2♦ (a pair of kings and a king-high flush draw)
The 9♣ on the turn made Antonius’ straight, Isildur1 rivering a useless set when the K♠ fell.
“This is a joke,” wrote Isildur1 in the chat box.
Around midnight EST and up $2.57 million, Antonius took a 30-minute meal break, standing up from all his tables and taking his massive stacks with him. When he sat back in, Isildur1 was four-tabling Brian Townsend at $300/600 PLO. Antonius reset his stacks to $200,000 apiece on the pot-limit Omaha tables and $100,000 apiece on the no-limit hold'em tables.
With the action fierce and hyper-aggressive, Isildur1 won $600,000 in short order from Townsend and $200,000 pots were commonplace. Doing much better against Townsend than he was with Antonius, Isildur1 even offered to quit Antonius in favor of playing more tables.
Isildur1: i quit pat and play 6 tables if u want
Brian Townsend: on laptop can only play 4
Townsend eventually found his rhythm and made a comeback during the 1:00 a.m. hour, winning several $200k+ pots in a row. By 2:00 a.m. he had pulled within even and was sporting an $872,000 stack on one of his tables. That stack turned into over a million after he stacked Isildur1, rivering a queen-high straight against his flopped set of threes in a $364,595 pot. That pot, however, wasn’t the largest one to develop at the $300/600 tables that night — not by a long shot. Townsend played two pots in excess of $500,000 with Isildur1 and ended up on the losing end both times.
Holding $616K to Townsend’s $275K, Isildur1 opened for $2,000 from the button. Townsend reraised to $6,200 and Isldur1 came back over the top with a four-bet to $18,800. Townsend called and they saw a Q♥9♦8♣ flop. Townsend checked, Isildur1 bet $26,800, Townsend raised to $60,000 straight and Isildur1 called. The turn came the 6♣ and Townsend put out a pot-sized bet of $157,800. Isildur1 moved all in for $527,356 and Townsend called off his remaining $38,294. It was a set of queens for Townsend with K♦Q♠Q♦5♠ and a nine-high straight for Isildur1 who held J♦9♣7♦5♣. Townsend couldn’t pair the board on the river, the A♥ falling to give the $549,987 pot to Isildur1.
In terms of the number of big blinds wagered, the following hand was the largest played that night at 579 BB. Isildur1 made it $2,000 to go. Townsend called and check-called a $3,600 bet on the A♥J♠9♠ flop. The turn came the 2♣ and Townsend check-called another $10,200. The river fell the 2♦ and Townsend checked a third time. Isldur1 bet $26,400, Townsend raised to $82,000, Isildur1 repopped it to $277,800 and after a long thing, Townsend made the call, only to see Isildur1 turn over the nut full house with A♠A♣4♠4♦ good for the $587,399 pot.
Townsend insta-quit Isildur1 after that pot, leaving with a $440,000 loss.
With Antonius topping up his stack on the pot-limit Omaha tables but not the no-limit hold-em tables, Isildur1 called him out on his behavior.
Isildur1: omaha u reload put in 200 bb right away
Isildur1: here u playing 30-50 and not reloading
Antonius: i dont like deep nl
Isildur1: no u just playing 1 million $ pots superdeep
Isildur1: and make great herocalls
Isildur1: i playing u deep in omaha so u could give some back
Antonius: the truth is
Antonius: that i suck in this game
Antonius continued to flourish on the pot-limit Omaha tables, taking his earnings for the session to a high water mark of $3.3 million by 3:45 a.m. Although he picked up another $500K pot at the pot-limit Omaha tables, Antonius also took down this massive no-limit hold'em pot, sending Isildur1’s head spinning. Antonius opened for $3,000, Isildur1 three-bet to $12,000 and Antonius called. Isildur1 check-called a $15,000 bet on the 9♣8♣4♠ flop, then checked again when the 5♥ hit the turn. Antonius fired out $31,000, Isildur1 raised to $146,000, Antonius set him all-in and Isildur1 called another $38,497, turning over the 6♥8♥ for second pair and a gutshot straight draw while Antonius held an overpair with A♥A♣. The river blanked out with the 2♦ and Antonius dragged the $422,995 pot.
At that point, Isildur1 quit both the no-limit hold'em tables to play Antonius at two more tables of pot-limit Omaha, clearly his weaker game. Isildur1 was able to grind back another $300,000 before Antonius called it quits around 5:30 a.m. EST.
Antonius: im done for today
Antonius: its late here
Antonius: play tomorrow if u want
Isildur1: k
Isildur1: gg
Antonius: gg
Total session winnings: Patrik Antonius (+$2,978,000), Isildur1 (-$2,539,000), Brian Townsend (-$440,000)
Will Isildur1 be busto or robusto by the end of the week? Download Full Tilt Poker and check out the action for yourself.
