Posts Tagged ‘Viktor Blom’

Post-Blom/Hansen Full Tilt debuts New Advertising Campaign

Friday, October 24th, 2014

It’s only been a few days since Full Tilt dumped Gus Hansen and Viktor Blom. And already the online poker site has debuted their new marketing approach, which seeks to appeal to the average person, rather than skilled players who actually care about pros.

Anybody who previously read about Full Tilt’s move away from “Pro-centric advertising” shouldn’t be surprised at the angle that these commercials take. Dubbed “The Call” and “The Bluff,” these new ads are pro-free and feature amateurs trying to make important decisions.

In many ways, the commercials hearken back to the mid-2000s, when poker was seen as a somewhat mystical game where untold fortunes lay. Furthermore, the ads are all about regular guys, with one shoving all-in because he doesn’t think his opponent “has the heart,” while the other guy considers the call because he’s “not leaving without a show.”

All in all, Full Tilt should be applauded for their new approach, which is miles away from their old motto of “Learn, Chat and Play with the Pros.” Take a look at the ads for yourself and see what you think:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGOh-AZTsnE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CL01YcfwuM

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Viktor Blom, Gus Hansen dropped by Full Tilt Poker

Tuesday, October 21st, 2014

Sponsored pros were once a staple of the online poker industry. But Viktor ‘Isildur1′ Blom and Gus Hansen recently found out the hard way that this is no longer the case these days. Both were let go by Full Tilt Poker in a move that’s officially disbanded “The Professionals.”

Blom, Hansen and Tom Dwan were signed to be Full Tilt’s Professionals after the site’s post-Black Friday launch in late 2012. Dwan was eventually dropped by FTP in late 2013 while Isildur1 and Hansen remained with the team. However, almost one year later, they are both gone too.

Anybody who’s searching for reasons why need look no further than what’s currently happening in the online poker industry. Few sites see the use in having sponsored pros wearing their patch, given the heavy focus on recreational players. So offering lucrative contracts to players like Blom and Hansen is an archaic business model in today’s poker world.

An additional reason for getting rid of their remaining sponsored players is likely their recent performance. After bursting on to the internet poker scene in late 2009, Isildur1 has failed to recapture the magic he had back in those days. Currently, HighStakesDB shows Blom as being over $3 million in the hole at Full Tilt.

Of course, this is nothing compared to Hansen – perhaps online poker’s biggest loser ever (close competition with Guy Laliberte). The Great Dane has over $20 million in losses, and his graph shows a consistent downward spiral since the relaunch of Full Tilt.

So if the industry trend wasn’t already against these two, their lackluster results didn’t exactly convince FTP that they couldn’t do without Blom and Hansen. And don’t expect any more big signings to fill these guys’ void.

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Viktor Blom answers Poker’s Tough Questions during FTP Challenge

Friday, November 15th, 2013

Viktor “Isildur1” Blom recently took on 100 challengers at Full Tilt Poker during a promotion. And Blom was his usual self, multi-tabling heads-up sit and go’s against five players at a time.

In the end, he was able to beat 62 of the 100 challengers, which was pretty good considering how he was multi-tabling. However, it’s worth mentioning that he put up $100,000 of his own money, and had to pay $1,000 to each winner. This meant he forked over $38,000 to the 38 winners when the challenge was over.

One really interesting side product of this challenge was that Blom answered some questions. He discussed everything from how look it took him to build his bankroll to who the best online poker players are right now. You can see all of the questions here, but here’s a look at the first several that were asked/answered:

@Nickkdevries: How did you came in contact with online poker?
Viktor Blom: A friend of my brother’s told me about it and I decided to give it a try.

@twsk8nst: how did you get financed in the first place circa 2008/2009
VB: I just ran up my bankroll myself.

@CakeEater12: most amount of $ you’ve flipped for?
VB: $50k I think, I ran so bad at flips.

@pvd_27: what’s your favourite board game?
VB: Malarky was fun. Good bluffing game.

@Pokerlifestkr: how about a shout out to all swedish fans grinding out there Viktor pokerlifegear
VB: lycka till vid borden!

@ChrisAbela1: How true are the stories regarding your earlier winnings on Euro networks?
VB: I don’t know what’s out there, so I can’t answer that one.

@PaulieRider: Victor, how do you cook a perfect boiled egg?
VB: No idea.

@Carrottoppoker: will you be coming to Australia anytime soon for any poker tournaments?
VB: I may go for Aussie Millions, not sure yet though.

@sjdaniel: Can you ship me 10k? I promise I will give it back, someday…
VB: I’ll play you for it.

@Vimio_NL: How much time did it take, to build your bankroll to 100K for the first time?
VB: 8-9 months since first time I played.

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Viktor Blom continues Amazing Year, wins SCOOP Main Event

Tuesday, May 28th, 2013

We’ve seen no shortage of Viktor “Isildur1” Blom in the poker news headlines this year since he’s had an incredible run in online cash games. And Blom has proven to be multi-dimensional after winning the 2013 PokerStars SCOOP Main Event High along with nearly $1.1 million.

Many of poker’s elite bought into this $10,300 tourney, and a $5,800,000 prize pool was on the line. With first place guaranteed over $1 million, competition was intense on the first day. By the end of Day 1, just 72 players remained and Blom had moved up to second in chips with 412,539.

When the nine-player final table was formed, Blom was still going pretty strong as he was fourth in chips. He eliminated a couple of final table players and won some huge pots to work his way into a heads-up match with Noah “Exclusive” Boeken.

The noted Dutch pro held a 3-to-1 chip advantage over Blom, but this proved meaningless as Isildur1 put his incredible heads-up skills on display. In less than an hour, he dispatched Boeken to claim the top spot and a $1.1 million payday.

This fortune goes along nicely with the $3 million that Viktor Blom has made playing in cash games in 2013. Known for swingy play over his four-year career, Blom has seen mostly ups lately and has earned $1 million or more several times throughout the year.

At one point, he was up over $5.5 million, but has since had a few rough days and fallen to $3 million in profits. However, this is still an impressive mark and, considering that six months are left in 2013, we could definitely see his profits continue increasing.

2013 SCOOP Main Event Final Table

1. Viktor “Isildur1” Blom – $1,096,200
2. Noah “Exclusive” Boeken – $803,300
3. cmontopdeck – $591,600
4. Mike “munchenHB” Telker – $446,600
5. Sergio “zcedrick” Aido – $313,200
6. Ravi “govshark2” Raghavan – $246,500
7. w4ldo – $188,500
8. leshkaGmBlZ – $130,500
9. Adrián “Amadi_017” Mateos Díaz – $88,740

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What happened to Tom Dwan in Online Poker?

Saturday, January 19th, 2013

When it comes to online poker, Tom “durrrr” Dwan will always be known as one of the most famous players. After all, he was widely considered a top internet grinder from 2008-2010. However, the past few years have seen Dwan’s profits and online reputation take a major hit. To illustrate this point, let’s follow Dwan’s profits during the most significant rises and drops in his career:

– October, 2007, -$330k (rough start)
– December, 2008, $5.73 million (the legend was born)
– February, 2009, $2 million (a sharp drop)
– June, 2009, $7.23 million (Dwan’s peak)
– November, 2009, -$1 million (playing Viktor Blom takes its toll)
– April, 2010, $6.72 million (thank you Guy Laliberte)
– April, 2011, $2.4 million (a steady drop before Black Friday)
– January, 2013, $883k (the fall continues)

As you can see, Dwan has never been a stranger to wild bankroll swings. However, it looks like these swings have been going down far more often than up since April of 2010. Because of this big bankroll drop, some people question whether or not Dwan could even compete with the top online players of today.

There’s no simple answer to this thought because, as his results indicate, durrrr has not been a successful player over the past two and a half years. However, it’s worth mentioning that Dwan doesn’t dedicate the bulk of his time towards beating high stakes games at Full Tilt Poker anymore. Instead, he’s still grinding in the live Macau cash games and making a healthy profit off the Asian businessmen and whales there.

Assuming the Macau games were ever to dry up, it’s likely that Tom Dwan would fully rededicate himself to beating online poker – if there were no other juicy cash games elsewhere. And while it’s debatable on whether he’d definitely beat Blom, Ben Sulsky, Phil Ivey and other high stakes grinders, he could definitely become a profitable player.

After all, Dwan did revolutionize the way many poker players thought about the game during the late 2000’s. So as smart as he is about poker, it’s merely a matter of wanting to be one of the best again.

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Barcode – The Mysterious Online Poker Phenom

Thursday, October 18th, 2012

When it comes to high stakes online poker, we’re used to seeing names like Phil Galfond and Viktor Blom dominating the news. However, a new and mysterious player named “Barcode” (a.k.a. 1Il|1Il|1il|) has been experiencing most of the success lately.

Getting into the specifics, this player is fresh off of a week where he made over $554k. And this isn’t the only success that Barcode has experienced because he’s managed to collect over $1.3 million while playing against some of the top online poker players in the world. October 11th was an especially good day since he was able to win $557k in profits!

Apparently, Barcode makes the bulk of his money on the PokerStars $100/$200 and $200/$400 PLO tables. This certainly isn’t surprising because these games are a favorite among many of the world’s top players. It’ll definitely be interesting to see if Barcode continues to top the nosebleeds and haul in major profits.

Tony G backing Jungleman

In other big high stakes news, Tony “G” Gouga has announced that he’s going to stake Dan Cates. Gouga wrote about the news with the following:

I have talked before about how I wanted to stake Isildur1 – well I am back in the staking business now as I am backing Daniel ‘Jungleman’ Cates. I think this guy could turn $5 million into $100 million – he’s a genius. I started off by backing him for the WPT Grand Prix de Paris and intend to back him live but predominantly online.

To those who’ve followed high stakes in the past, it may seem weird that Cates is being staked. After all, he made over $5 million in 2010 profits and has collected around $8 million overall. However, he’s also had a lot of money locked up on Full Tilt over the last year and a half. Plus it seems like he may have hit a little downswing as Gouga said, “He has definitely had his ups and downs but his heart is in the right place.”

With a rich backer like Tony G, it will be very interesting to see how Cates does in the near future.

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Negreanu and Isildur1 Split SuperStar Showdown Matches

Monday, March 28th, 2011

In one of the most anticipated events in online poker history, Daniel Negreanu recently agreed to take Viktor “Isildur1” Blom on in two PokerStars SuperStar Showdown matches. If you’re unfamiliar with this event, it involves Blom challenging a different player every so often to 2,500 hands of $50/$100 No-Limit Hold’em, and the players multi-table four tables. The one other rule in this challenge is that both players have a $150k bankroll, and the game ends once one player loses their $150k, or the 2,500 hands end.

Going into the first matchup with Negreanu on March 20th, Blom was 4-1 against challengers, and he was a big favorite over Negreanu. After all, Kid Poker made a name for himself in live tournaments, while Isildur1 is considered one of the top online cash players in the game. In any case, Blom won big in the first matchup after he took Negreanu’s entire $150k bankroll in a matter of 1,439 hands.

As Negreanu so hastily pointed out, Blom ran a lot better than him in all-in hands, but for the most part, Blom’s overly-aggressive style and Negreanu’s lack of multi-tabling experience did him in. So did Negreanu come back for a March 27th rematch after being beaten badly the first time around? Of course he did!

However, it’s likely that Negreanu was wishing he hadn’t come back since he was down by $130,000 at one point in the second game. Incredibly though, Negreanu fought his way back after being only $20k away from losing. Kid Poker evened the score at around 2,000 hands, and he battled back and forth with Blom from there on out. In the last 50 hands, Negreanu took control of the match for good and beat Isildur1 by $26,500.

As you might have guessed, Negreanu was ecstatic about his victory over one of the best young cash players in the game today.

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