We’ve not been expecting to see much of Viktor Blom in recent days, due to a certain small poker festival happening in the Nevada involving large amounts of American currency. I’m starting to think Viktor isn’t going to head off the WSOP this year, which is a little surprising given how well Viktor has been doing in tournaments lately (SCOOP Main Event anyone?). If you have any idea whether Viktor is heading off to Vegas this summer, please let me know as stalking a famous poker player is hard work.
Viktor’s only game for the day was PLO, and it was all at the $500/$1000 $40k Cap Tables. There were two major sessions, each split into “mini” sessions of multiple tables, with Viktor playing over 3000 hands for the day.
Viktor started out at (and I’m assuming he’s still in London) Midday on Tuesday, and his first session ran until quarter to six in the evening. Blom was sat against many of the top PLO players in the world (Galfond excluded as he’s currently in Las Vegas), and he seemed the be up against “Raging Heart” on most tables he played across his whole day. Others that turned up included Hac “trex313” Dang, Rob “Vaga_Lion” Akery and “samrostan.”
The first “mini” session of the early action was over three tables, and saw 123 hands of action. Viktor showed a profit at two of the tables, and ended with a $104,795 profit. The second “mini” session was a larger affair, with 419 hands over five tables. Blom didn’t fair as well here, and lost $293,794, and it appears that the majority of this went to “Raging heart.”
“Mini” Session three was over only four tables, and after 305 hands, Viktor had essentially broken even, only losing half a capped pot’s worth of his stack at $20,030. The fourth session saw action spread over five tables, and Viktor return to winning ways. 414 hands of action saw a $127,556 profit for the Swede, and it looks like it came exclusively from the pocket of “Raging Heart.”
“Mini” session five was the penultimate of the early play, and lasted an hour and 490 hands, with action at 9 different tables at varying times. Viktor lost big, and dropped $329,893, again with “Raging Heart” seemingly the main beneficiary.
The last “mini” session of the early part of Viktor’s day was a quick 99 hand affair over three tables, and resulted in yet another loss. $285,631 left Viktor’s account, and again seems to have gone to the mysterious “Raging Heart.”
Viktor’s early session ended with him in the hole to the tune of $696,997, not the best start to the day for one of the worlds best poker players.
Viktor took some time away from the tables, and came back about six hours later, and sat straight back into the same game he had left earlier, only now Ben “Bttech86” Tollerene was also in the mix.
The later session was broken up into five “mini” sessions, starting off with a two table 128 hand session costing Viktor $31,524.
The second “mini” session was again a short one at only 97 hands, and overturned the loss from the last one when Viktor added $57,013 into his bankroll. The third mini session followed the same pattern with Viktor making $26,774 from 82 hands.
Here the small sessions stopped, an Viktor got down to the true grind, and “mini” session 4 was a comparatively large 485 hands. Coincidentally, it also garnered Viktor a relatively large profit of $243,302, and turning the tables on “Raging Heart,” a lot of it came from his bank account. The last session was also a large one, with 581 hands, but unfortunately for Viktor, the profits weren’t linked to sample size, and he only made $161,317 from the action.
We were able to capture some of the action, and have a video for you below involving our favourite Swede.
The late PLO action made Viktor back $456,882, which gave him a daily loss of $240,115, taking his yearly profits to $2,286,703, dropping him into third in the league table of cash game winners.
Viktor’s play for day doesn’t actually concern me, given the fact he took a break when he did. If Viktor had continued on from his early session, he would have been like the Viktor Blom of old, spiralling out of control. But he left the game, and didn’t return for six hours, and when he came back, he crushed the games. It’s classic mental game strategy, and it’s nice to see Viktor employ it. I have to think that Viktor has been introduced to some of Jared Tendler’s work, possibly by the man himself, given his improvements in this area recently. Tendler is widely considered the leader in this field, and he has chapters in his books that could have been written with Viktor in mind.
If Viktor can continue to improve the mental part of his game, the next time he heats up, it’s going to get crazy. I just wonder if that will happen online, or when Viktor hits the Las Vegas Strip.