Since we last checked in with Viktor Blom, he’s played two days of action, and has seen action across Fixed Limit Omaha, Fixed Limit 2-7 Triple Draw and No Limit Hold’em. He’s played 2853 hands across these games, at both heads up and 6-Max tables, against a range of players.
Viktor has never been one to avoid hard work, and since the mental aspect of his game has improved he’s been able to make the most of his work ethic. Who ever has coached Viktor needs a medal, or at least a big pot of gold. They have taken someone who was notorious for haemorrhaging money when he tilted into someone who is becoming more and more able to avoid tilt issues altogether. Saying that, we better have a look at what happened on the tables during the past few days, and see if it still holds true.
Thursday’s action started off with some FLO8 action at the 6-Max tables. The action started off three handed between Blom, Gus Hansen, and Kyle “KPR16” Ray. Viktor started off well, and made a $95,216 profit over 150 hands in this game, before Blom moved over to another game. FLO8 was the big game of the day, and Blom returned to play these tables later in the day. The game involved the same three protagonists, but this time with the addition of Macau resident, “samrostan,” into the mix.
They played out 1223 hands of action, with large sums of money flying around. $360,832 ended up flying into Viktor’s pocket, which he can’t see as a bad thing. We caught some of the action from this session, and have a few of the bigger hands in the video below.
Thursday also saw Viktor playing some 2-7TD, and as usual, he was at the big boy tables. With most of the action being against Blom’s regular 2-7TD dance partner, “Kagome Kagome.” They were joined later by Viktor’s fellow Full Tilt Professional, Gus Hansen. Viktor saw 487 hands at these tables, but they weren’t particularly favourable, as he dropped $117,789 on the tables, only to see most of it picked up by Gus. We caught some of the action, and have a few hands for your enjoyment below.
With the addition of a quick 72 hand NLHE session against “SanIker,” that was the end of Viktor’s working Thursday. He ended with a $377,241 profit, taking his yearly total to $3,597,387, and was still sitting in second place in the yearly race.
Viktor came back to the tables on Friday, and played a bit more of a relaxed day with only 906 hands of action. He must have thought it was POETS day.
The first port of call after the FLO8 action that had run over the date line the previous night, were the 2-7TD tables, with action against “Kagome Kagome.” 352 hands later, Viktor had added $30,664 to his online bankroll.
Viktor’s wandering spirit then led him to the $50/$1000 NLHE $30k Cap heads up tables against “SanIker.” The 554 hands these two played in their one on one battle ran mainly in the German’s favour, leaving Viktor short $158,073 from his bankroll. We caught some of the action, and have some of the more interesting hands in the Video below.
After the loss, Viktor ended his Friday action and left the online poker world for the day. He was down $127,409, which took his yearly profit down to $3,546,981. He’s still in second place behind Kyle “cottonseed1” Hendon, but is only just over $50k behind.
Over these two days, Viktor again showed his advancement in how he handles his swings. Thursday saw Viktor make the most of his chances, and left the action as it got late, but (for once) saw him leave the action before he started to lose. Players wanting to see how a top class player maintains his game throughout a session should look at Viktor’s play on Thursday as a template of the way to handle a good winning day.
Conversely, Friday’s action is an other great example. This time how to handle a losing day, and when to pull the plug, and walk away from the action. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, who ever is coaching Viktor on the mental part of his game has done a great job. He’s gone from one of the best examples of what not to do, to one of the better examples of what a player should do. I’m not saying he’s perfect, and I’m sure he’s still working on aspects of his game, but the improvement has been impressive.