The Railbird Report: Viktor "Isildur1" Blom On His Way Salvaging a Disastrous Year
2016 is by no means over yet and it's much too early to draw conclusions. One of the players this statement is true for the most, is Viktor "Isildur1" Blom. After a great year on PokerStars (peaking at +$4.95 million, ending the year at +$3.5 million), Blom had a disastrous start to 2016.
The month of January was relatively quiet for him and the remainder of the year was mostly downhill. Week after week and month after month, PokerNews reported Blom losing hundreds of thousands of dollars. For most of the year, he lead the Top 3 losing players, getting awfully close to a million in the red.
The last few months haven't been so bad and actually saw a small comeback. The last weeks have been really good for Blom. He got some traction again and even increased his hours on the table. Blom has always put in the volume, playing more hands than most of the high-stakes regulars combined and he put on the pressure even more recently.
Last week he was the biggest winner and his name tops the list again this week. He's still down a lot of money for the year (-$493,108) but he's escaped the Top 3 now. He's up $1,475,771 over his 1,133,251 lifetime on PokerStars according to HighStakesDB, which means he made $1.30 a hand. Full Tilt Poker no longer has high-stakes action, so it's near impossible for Blom to ever get back into the black on that site, being down -$4,740,045 over 1,218,784 hands.
Last Week's Biggest Pots Online
Blom was, as one might expect these days, involved in some of the biggest pots of the week. Let's take a look:
1) A $133,512-Pot (267 big blinds) Involving Viktor "Isildur1" Blom, Ben "Sauce123" Sulsky and Alexandre "BiatchPeople" Luneau
($250/$500 PLO 5-Handed)
Blom was first to act and raised to $1,500. His neighbor Sulsky called before Luneau squeezed all in from the button for a mere $4,462.50. Both Henrik "hhecklen" Hecklen in the small blind and Andrey "Kroko-dill" Zaichenko in the big blind folded and Blom called. Sulsky now four-bet to $20,100 and Blom called to create a side pot.
With Luneau all in already and $43,912.50 in the middle, the flop came 9♠8♣9♦. Blom checked to Sulsky and was soon facing a bet of $9,507.45. Blom check-raised all in for $45,550 and Sulsky called.
| Player | Hand | Pre-Flop Equity | Equity Flop Main | Equity Flop Side |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Viktor "Isildur1" Blom | 10♥Q♥4♣J♣ | 20.73% | 12.16% | 39.39% |
| Ben "Sauce123" Sulsky | K♣K♠J♠6♣ | 50.28% | 14.68% | 60.61% |
| Alexandre "BiatchPeople" Luneau | 9♥Q♠A♦10♠ | 25.24% | 65.32% | - |
Blom's odds for the main pot were slim but for the much larger side pot, he still had some outs. The three of them ran the turn and river three times and would all end up with something to show for.
The first time it came 2♠7♥ making Blom a straight and giving him half the main pot and side pot. The second time it came 2♥4♥ giving half main pot to Luneau and half the side pot to Sulsky.
2) Viktor "Isildur1" Blom Wins a $120,632-Pot (241 big blinds) versus Matthew "MUSTAFABET" Ashton
($250/$500 PLO 4-Handed)
Alexander "joiso" Kostritsyn was first to act and folded. From the button, Ashton raised to $1,750 and small blind Blom three-bet to $5,750. Luneau folded his big blind and Ahston four-bet to $17,750. Blom called to create a $36,000 pot.
The flop came 7♣3♠2♣ and Blom checked. Ashton bet pot and Blom shoved for $42,316.36, just a little more. Ashton called.
| Player | Hand | Equity |
|---|---|---|
| Viktor "Isildur1" Blom | A♣K♠7♠3♣ | 82.32% |
| Matthew "MUSTAFABET" Ashton | A♠A♦Q♠8♠ | 17.68% |
The two of them ran the turn and river twice. Both times they favored Blom and his hand held up. The first time it came 6♦8♣. The 4♥ and 10♥ the second time were blanks as well and the pot went to Blom.
3) Alexandre "BiatchPeople" Luneau Wins a $106,917-Pot (214 big blinds) versus Elior "Crazy Elior" Sion
($250/$500 PLO 5-Handed)
Action folded to Elior "Crazy Elior" Sion and he open raised to $1,750 from the cutoff. The button (Sulsky) and small blind (Blom) folded before Luneau three-bet to $5,500 from the big blind. Sion called to create a $11,250 pot going to the flop.
Luneau fired $3,710.85 on Q♠10♥10♣ and Sion raised to $13,944.20. Luneau called and the 5♣ hit the turn. Luneau checked and saw Sion bet the pot. Luneau called all in for $33,889.50 and it was time for the cards to go on their backs.
| Player | Hand | Equity | (Tie) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alexandre "BiatchPeople" Luneau | A♣Q♣K♠K♥ | 25.00 | 7.50% |
| Elior "Crazy Elior" Sion | A♥K♦10♠9♠ | 67.50% | 7.50% |
Sion was the favorite, but Luneau would be the one receiving the entire pot. They ran the river twice and both the J♣ and K♣ were good for Luneau, making him a flush and a full house.
Online High-Stakes Action This Week
| (user)name | hands | profit/loss last week | profit/loss 2016 | profit/loss all time | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Winning Players | |||||
| 1 | Viktor "Isildur1" Blom | 9,790 | +$105,895 | -$493,108 | +$1,507,852 |
| 2 | BERRI SWEET | 396 | +$101,918 | - | - |
| 3 | donthnrmepls | 1,692 | +$101,894 | - | - |
| 4 | Alexandre "BiatchPeople" Luneau | 1,435 | +$94,983 | - | - |
| 5 | Zhou Chun "samrostan" Lei | 864 | +$59,785 | - | - |
| 6 | Dan "w00ki3z." Cates | 617 | +$59,022 | +$46,958 | +$1,311,112 |
| 7 | Timofey "Trueteller" Kuznetsov | 394 | +$35,242 | - | - |
| 8 | Henrik "hhecklen" Hecklen | 726 | +$33,411 | -$24,242 | +$51,243 |
| 9 | Alexander "joiso" Kostritsyn | 283 | +$25,839 | - | - |
| 10 | borntotilt | 464 | +$17,606 | +$21,429 | +$21,755 |
| Losing Players | |||||
| 1 | Dani "supernova9" Stern | 168 | -$134,716 | -$677,659 | -$677,659 |
| 2 | RaúlGonzalez | 2,664 | -$85,702 | - | - |
| 3 | Elior "Crazy Elior" Sion | 1,396 | -$77,921 | - | - |
| 4 | JesusLebtNOT | 85 | -$57,393 | - | - |
| 5 | 1nvoker | 667 | -$46,382 | - | - |
| 6 | VeGeTTo89 | 735 | -$41,813 | +$189,494 | +$246,106 |
| 7 | Lottenice | 598 | -$39,071 | - | - |
| 8 | bodamos | 222 | -$38,877 | -$867,360 | -$2,194,48 |
| 9 | Sergey "St1ckman" Vasiliev | 461 | -$25,758 | - | - |
| 10 | Ravenswood13 | 5,576 | -$23,750 | - | - |
The 2016 Leaderboard
The Top 3 of biggest winners so far this year (from the players with their account not opted out of tracking by HighStakesDB.com), haven't changed much. Mikael "ChaoRen160" Thuritz lost a little bit but there were no major changes in the order.
A bigger change was seen in the list with biggest losers. Viktor "Isildur1" Blom was this week's biggest winner and finally exited the losers' podium. The third spot is now taken by "candela2005." Blom is still this year's fourth biggest loser on the high stakes with a deficit of $493,108.
| (user)name | hands 2016 | profit/loss 2016 | profit/loss per hand 2016 | profit/loss all time | ↑/↓ | most played game 2016 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Winning players | |||||||
| 1 | Ben "Sauce123" Sulsky | 78,920 | +$787,621 | +$9.97 | +$4,824,823 | ↑ | 8-game |
| 2 | Mikael "ChaoRen160" Thuritz | 48,774 | +$573,843 | +$11.76 | +$1,434,391 | ↓ | 8-Game |
| 3 | Andres "Educa-p0ker" Artinano | 29,380 | +$561,403 | +$19.10 | +$982,391 | - | NLHM |
| Losing players | |||||||
| 1 | "bodamos" | 10,868 | -$867,360 | -$77.82 | -$2,155,605 | ↓ | 8-Game |
| 2 | Alex "Kanu7" Millar | 28,694 | -$635,521 | -$22.14 | +$2,625,070 | - | NLHM |
| 3 | "candela2005" | 12,953 | -$495,210 | -$38.23 | -$1,399,409 | - | NLHM |
The above top three biggest winners and losers in online poker for 2016 and the top 10 biggest winners and losers online for the last week only consist of PokerStars accounts that haven't opted out with HighStakesDB.com.
