The Online Railbird Report: Blom Wins $1.7 Million from Tollerene in Just Six Hours
Want to know how Viktor “Isildur1” Blom won $1,703,125 from Ben “Bttech86” Tollerene in just six hours? Just read on to learn all the details concerning a crazy week of poker on the virtual felt.
There wasn’t much to write about in last week’s Online Railbird Report as the high-stakes action on both Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars had slowed to a crawl. That wasn’t the case this week, though. Now that the Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS) XXII was in the books, the big-name pros returned to nosebleeds.
After losing $661,949 and finishing as last week’s biggest loser, Blom stormed back this week and finished as the biggest winner with $691,889 in profit. Blom was down over a million at one point, but thanks to an incredible heater on Wednesday night when he took an astounding $1,703,125 from Ben “Bttech86” Tollerene in just six hours, he was able to vault to the top of the leader board. We describe that match in more details below, but needless to say, Tollerene finished as the week’s biggest loser with $1,161,659 in losses.
Although Blom, who got his profit in 8,674 hands over 81 sessions, dominated the headlines, there were still plenty of other big winners this week including Patrik “FinddaGrind” Antonius (+$514,476 in 22 sessions/1,522 hands), Kyle “KPR16” Ray (+$342,961 in 26 sessions/3,046 hands) and “Follow The Hawk” (+$303,967 in 13 sessions/1,507 hands).
On the flip side, Gus Hansen (-$985,889 in 57 sessions/6,325 hands), “samrostan” (-$383,046 in 15 sessions/1,949 hands), “kagome kagome” (-$171,269 in 11 sessions/943 hands) and Sebastien “Seb86” Sabic (-$103,066 in 15 sessions/1,533 hands) all found their names in the loser column alongside Tollerene.
Wild Sunday Action on Full Tilt Poker
There was plenty of action to be had on Full Tilt Poker on Sunday as some of online poker’s biggest names came out to play. Kyle “KPR16” Ray kicked off things off in a big way by winning $350,000 playing fixed-limit Omaha Hi-Lo in the early morning hours, and he ended up adding another $100,600 to that by day’s end. All told, Ray banked $450,600 and finished as the day’s biggest winner.
The day’s biggest loser? That would be FTP Professional Gus Hansen, who lost a total of $716,000 playing FLO8 and 2-7 triple draw. Speaking of the latter game, “Follow The Hawk” cleaned up at the 2-7 triple draw games to the tune of $282,600, but it was only good for fourth on the leaderboard as both Ben “Bttech86” Tollerene and Alexander “PostFlopAction” Kostritsyn won $353,300 and $331,900, respectively.
Kostritsyn got most of his money from Hansen in the FLO8 and 2-7 triple draw came, while Tollerene’s came from Viktor “Isildur1” Blom, who dropped $448,000 in the match. Tollerene and Blom played a two-and-a-half hour match at the $500/$1,000 CAP pot-limit Omaha tables and accounted for nearly 120 maxed-out pots of $80,000. Here are a couple examples from the match.
Hand #1: Blom ($40,000) opened for $3,000 and then called when Tollerene ($114,999.50) three-bet to $9,000, bringing about a flop of 10♥3♦5♣. Tollerene led out for $18,000 and then called when Blom moved all in for $31,000.
Blom: 10♣8♣8♦4♦
Tollerene: A♠A♥Q♠7♠
Blom had flopped top pair, but it was behind the aces of Tollerene. Neither the 2♦ turn nor 3♥ river changed a thing and Tollerene was pushed the $80,000 pot.
Hand #2: Blom ($40,000) opened for $3,000, Tollerene ($100,000) called, and the flop fell 5♣J♣6♥. Tollerene checked, Blom bet $4,000, and Tollerene woke up with a check-raise to $18,000. Blom then moved all in for $37,000 total and Tollerene called.
Blom: 6♠6♣Q♦8♦
Tollerene: 5♥3♥4♦7♣
Blom got it in good with middle set, but he needed to sweat Tollerene’s wrap. The 4♣ turn gave Tollerene the said straight, which meant Blom needed either a seven or the board to pair on the river to win the pot. Unfortunately for him, the 8♠ blanked and Tollerene took down another $80,000 pot.
Tollerene may have dismantled Blom, but the Swede would return the favor five fold later in the week (which you can read about below). It’s also worth noting that Kyle “cottonseed1” Hendon and Phil “Polarizing” Ivey finished as six-figure winners on Sunday, profiting approximately $110,000 each.
Polk Finishes as PokerStars’ Biggest Winner
On Monday, April 1, Doug “WCG|Rider” Polk took on Ben “Sauce123” Sulsky at four tables of $100/$200 no-limit hold’em. After two hours, Sulsky walked away a $197,000 win and avenged his $211,000 loss to Polk a week earlier. The biggest pot from that match was $60,394, and surprisingly it went to Polk.
Despite losing to Sulsky, Polk ended up finishing with $213,789 in profit for the week, making him PokerStars’ biggest winner.
Blom Wins $1.7 Million in Six Hours
Ben “Bttech86” Tollerene had been winning the battle against Viktor “Isildur1” Blom this week — up $900,000 at one point — but that all changed on Wednesday when the Swede won an astounding $1,703,125 in just five hours and 40 minutes at the $500/$1,000 CAP PLO tables, which means each pot was capped at $80,000.
In the first two hours, Blom was up around $200,000 when the two opted to open some more tables. That’s when the FTP Professional went on an uncanny heater and went up $1.25 million! Tollerene managed to bring that back down to $600,000, but then momentum swung back to Blom. Eventually Tollerene was either unwilling or unable to top of his stacks (suggesting his bankroll was depleted), and Blom gobbled up the rest of his chips.
Obviously there were plenty of capped $80,000 pots, but we don’t have room to go over them all. As such, we’ve picked three examples, all of which went to Blom.
Hand #1: Tollerene ($96,499) opened for $3,000 and then made it $27,000 to go after Blom ($163,902) three-bet to $9,000. Blom capped it at $40,000, Tollerene called, and the cards were turned up.
Tollerene: A♦10♥K♣3♠
Blom: A♠A♣J♣6♣
Blom got it in good with aces, but it would be his jack and six that would win him the $80,000 pot as the board ran out 2♥J♠6♦5♥J♦, giving him jacks full of sixes. It was a little overkill, though, because Tollerene couldn’t even beat the initial aces.
Hand #2: Blom ($66,999.50) opened for $3,000 and then called when Tollerene ($57,997.50) three-bet to $9,000, leading to an 8♥A♠9♥ flop. Tollerene led out for $18,000 and Blom capped it with a raise to $31,000. Tollerene called off with the A♦Q♥Q♣3♣ for a pair of aces, and it was ahead of Blom’s J♦J♣10♦5♥ open-ended straight draw. The 9♣ turn was of no consequence, but the J♠ river was as it gave Blom jacks full of nines and the $80,000 pot.
Hand #3: After Blom ($58,243) opened for $3,000 on the button and Tollerene ($92,166.50) called, the flop came down Q♥K♣6♥, and both players checked. Tollerene checked for a second time on the 3♦ turn, which opened the door for Blom to bet $5,000. Tollerene responded with a check-raise to $21,000, Blom capped it, and a call was made.
Tollerene: K♦J♦5♠3♠
Blom: K♠J♥3♥5♣
Both players had turned the same two pair, but Blom held a flush draw. Wouldn’t you know it, the A♥ spiked on the river to complete that draw and give him another $80,000 pot.
When the dust settled, Blom made banked an incredible score and vaulted past Alexander “PostFlopAction” Kostritsyn on top of the 2013 Biggest Online Poker Winner leaderboard.
Biggest Winners/Losers (Full Tilt Poker)
Week’s biggest winners (3/28-4/4): Viktor “Isildur1” Blom (+$691,889), Patrik “FinddaGrind” Antonius (+$514,476), Kyle “KPR16” Ray (+$342,961), “Follow The Hawk” (+$303,967), “bbvisbadforme” (+$241,336), Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond (+$230,340), “SallyWoo” (+$217,311), Doug “WCG|Rider” Polk* (+$213,789)
Week’s biggest losers: Ben “Bttech86” Tollerene (-$1,161,659), Gus Hansen (-$985,889), “samrostan” (-$383,046), “kagome kagome” (-$171,269), Sebastien “Seb86” Sabic (-$103,066)
Year’s biggest winners: Viktor “Isildur1” Blom (+$4,065,079), Alexander “PostFlopAction” Kostritsyn (+$3,777,298), Patrik “FinddaGrind” Antonius (+$2,030,772), Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond (+$2,027,676), Kyle “KPR16” Ray (+$1,147,290), Kyle “cottonseed1” Hendon (+$1,138,646), Hac “1Il|1Il|1il|” Dang* (+$903,784), Ronny “ronnyr37617” Kaiser (+$863,102), “SallyWoo” (+$861,615), Ben “Bttech86” Tollerene (+$774,673)
Year’s biggest losers: Gus Hansen (-$2,731,687), Ben “Sauce1234” Sulsky (-$1,904,302), Phil “Polarizing” Ivey (-$1,604,501), “patpatpanda” (-$1,330,885), Scott “mastrblastr” Seiver (-$1,220,393), “punting-peddler” (-$1,099,064), “CRAIN85” (-$925,500), “samrostan” (-$863,299), Alex “IReadYrSoul” Millar (-$826,652), Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies (-$821,040)
*Denotes PokerStars
Data, hands and replayer obtained from HighStakesDB.com
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