Viktor Blom

Biography

Viktor Blom, best known in the poker community by his online alias Isildur1 is a Swedish professional poker player. He stormed into the online poker scene in the late 2009 crashing the high-stakes games at Full Tilt Poker and challenging many of the top-class poker pros.

Intro

Viktor Blom was born in Sweden in 1990. He started playing poker around the age of 14 with his friends and as soon as he turned 18 Blom started playing poker online. Due to the Swedish tax system which rakes most of their citizens' online poker winnings, Blom left his home country and moved to London at the age of 21. Despite his success at the online tables, Blom has only a few live tournament cashes, the biggest of which is the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure $100,000 Super High Roller title which he won in 2012.

Background

A Swedish player under the username of Isildur1 appeared on Full Tilt Poker in September, 2009 and in just two months became an online phenomenon. He quickly started playing the high-stakes nosebleed games against some of the biggest pros in the field including Tom Dwan, Phil Ivey, Brian Townsend, Cole South, Phil Ivey, and Patrik Antonius.

World Series of Poker

Blom boasts a total of three World Series of Poker cashes, one of which he scored in 2010 in London at the WSOP Europe Main Event. He finished that tournament in 16th place and collected £33,582 in prize money. He did a little bit better two years ago in Vegas where he cashed in two events – at first Blom finished in 151st place in the $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em - Six Handed event for $2,706 and two weeks later he collected $105,235 for his 14th place finish at the $50,000 Poker Players Championship.

Viktor Bloms's WSOP Results

European Poker Tour

Although he regularly played many of the big European tournaments it wasn't until the 2012 EPT PokerStars Caribbean Adventure that Blom actually won a major title. It all changed in the Paradise Island when Blom took down the $100,000 Super High Roller beating Dan Shack heads-up for the title and collecting the main cash prize of more than $1 million.

That same year Blom scored three more cashes in different EPT events. He first collected €13,400 for the second place in the €5,000 Heads-Up event at the EPT Deauville, then finished seventh at the €10,000 8 Max Re-Entry event for €29,700 in EPT Berlin. Blom scored another cash in the EPT' Grand Final in Monte Carlo where he recorded another seventh place in the €10,000 6 Max Turbo High Roller event for €28,700.

Viktor Bloms's EPT Results

Other Achievements

Inside the poker community Viktor Blom is best known for his performance in the online nosebleed games against some of the world's best poker players. He first appeared on the online poker radar in September 2009 and by mid November already had a record of $6 million in online cash game winnings and a status of a new-born online poker star. However, Isildur's winning balance changed completely in just a month when he lost most of his bankroll to Ivey, Antonius and Hastings.

On December 8th, 2009 Isildur1 played a five-hour $500/$1,000 HU Pot-Limit Omaha session against Hastings during which the latter won over $4 million. The game was then followed by online poker community's accusations to Hastings of taking advantage of Isildur's hand history which he obtained from Cole South and Brian Townsend. After the big loss and the controversy following the game against Hastings, Isildur1 disappeared from the high-stakes field and didn't come back for almost a year.

Sponsorship

In 2010 Ilisdur1 signed a partnership deal with the online poker giant PokerStars to represent the site and was officially introduced during the 2011 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. The ceremony featured Viktor Blom coming out from the backstage ending all speculations about Isildur's real identity. In August 2012 Blom and PokerStars terminated their partnership.

Did you know?

• During the last months of 2009 Blom played some of the biggest hands in online poker history raking and loosing pots which sometimes exceeded half a million dollars.
• Isildur1 was supposed to reveal his identity at the PartyPoker's Big Game IV back in April, 2010, but backed out just a few days before the event.