As I sit in my Isildur1 proof bunker, surrounded by a white winter wasteland, I consider my life, and how much of it I may have left. My reasons for this? Viktor Blom dropped money again last night. I’m starting to think I’m a jinx to the man. He’s not turned a profit since I started writing this series, and I’m still clinging to the hope that after his amazing start to the year, it’s just variance kicking in.
I was buoyed by the sight of Viktor showing a profit early last night at both 2-7 TD and FLO8, two games that have not been kind to Mr. Blom recently. Maybe his day off on Wednesday had helped?
Isildur1 vs PostflopAction
Viktor’s day at work started against PostflopAction at a $1.5k/$3k 2-7 TD table on Full Tilt Poker. After a nearly 4 hour session playing each other, Viktor left showing a profit of over $155k, a significant improvement over recent history, and with hands like this, it’s easy to see why.
Viktor raised from the button, and PostflopAction (PFA) calls behind. PFA drew 3 new cards, and Blom drew 2. PFA checked the action over to the aggressive Swede, and Viktor raised, to see his opponent call behind.
PFA discarded 2 cards, and Viktor only felt the need to change 1 card, leading to another round of Checking, betting, but this time we saw another bet, this time from PostflopAction, before Viktor called in position. PFA stood pat while Viktor drew another card. This time, PFA led out, and Viktor was the one to re-raise, and saw the man across the felt call him, and make Viktor Table his card.
I’m sure Mr. Blom had no issues in showing his cards as his third draw had brought him the absolute nuts of 7a5s4s3c2c. PostflopAction mucked his hand, and the $33k pot was shipped to Viktor’s growing stack.
Given the odds of Blom’s 3rd draw bringing him that nut hand, I was hopeful that the jinx had been broken, and with Blom winning nearly $97k from SallyWoo at a FLO8 table, I thought I could probably leave the house this morning.
Even when I saw Viktor’s second session playing $2k/$4k FLO8 had yielded a loss to SallyWoo of $22k I wasn’t disheartened.
Blom Takes on Sauce
What I hadn’t counted on was Viktor playing $250/$500 PLO against Sauce1234. These two players had been butting heads for the past few days, with Sauce starting to get his own back for his early losses.
We didn’t capture these hands last night, so we can’t give you any specifics, but while Blom did show a profit at 1 of the 4 tables they we re playing (to the tune of £120k), the other 3 tables weren’t as kind, and Viktor dropped $91,792 in total.
Still, this left Viktor $140k up, so I was still hopeful to feel the cold winter wind kiss my skin today, and I remained hopeful for a while yet.
More Sauce, Mixing it up with Cottonseed1
Blom, mixing his games again, started another session against Sauce1234, dropping another $94k over 5 tables, while at the same time showing a $161k FLO8 profit over Cottonseed1. We did manage to capture some of this action, and this hand give you an indication of how the game went.
Cottonseed opened from the button with Isildur re-raising from out of position. Cottonseed’s call brought us the flop of A
A
Q. Blom bet out, and Cottonseed called. The turn of the 3 completed the flush draws, and Blom came out firing, only for his opponent to comeback over the top. Blom capped the action, and Cottonseed call, and we went to the river. After the 5 made flushes a little less likely, Blom led out, and this time Cottonseed only called.
Blom turned over 4A
52 for Aces full to take the hi, and the wheel to take the lo. Obviously, at least some of Viktor’s rungood had returned, as the $48k pot went his way.
SallyWoo Round 2
Even with another session of FLO8 going the way of SallyWoo to the tune of $35k, it seemed Viktor was having a better day.
If only it had stayed that way, I’d now be out in the snow, making a big ass snowman to satisfy my inner child. What started next was a brutal session on FLO8 $2k/$4k tables against SallyWoo with KPR16 pilling on later.
It wasn’t all going against Blom, he did show a profit at 2 of the 5 tables he was playing, they were for relatively minor amounts, with losses of over half a million wiping these out, along with his profits from earlier in the day.
Hand like this against SallyWoo probably didn’t help.
Sally opened from the button, with Blom calling to see the flop of 439. Viktor checked raised over Sally’s raise in position, and Sally called to take us to the 3
turn card. Viktor continued with his characteristic aggression and led out, only for a betting war to begin, leading to Viktor capping the action with a $12k bet. SallyWoo’s call brought the river card of the Ace of clubs, bringing in the flush, and opening up access to the nut low.
Viktor bet out, to see Sally’s re-raise in position. Viktor called, and SallyWoo Turned over A5AJ for Aces full of Threes to scoop the pot of $56k.
Summary
This continuing action left Viktor $207,146 down for the day, deepening the downswing started a few days ago. Below is a graph from his session.
But don’t worry too much for Blom, our records show him still up just over $3,000,000 so far in 2013. This is down from his high point of $5.16 million, so we hope to see him move back up, instead of down, in the coming weeks.
I am ensconced in my bunker, with my eye fixed on the high stakes tables, begging for a chance to safely leave. While I’m here, I might see if I can find Mr, Blom at the Full Tilt Challenge tables, where Full Tilt are offering us the chance to play both him and Gus Hansen at lower levels for both honour and some interesting bonuses.
You can read more about the promotion here, and you can download the Full Tilt Client here, and go and join in with the emptying of Viktor Blom’s account.
Graphs courtesy of http://www.highstakesdb.com/