In this first of a series of articles, Black Belt Poker examine the legend that is Isildur and the impact he has made on the poker world. Over the course of the next week, we’ll be detailing the rise and fall of Isildur whilst obtaining contributions from the following top poker pros: Ben Grundy, Nik Persaud, Roland De Wolfe, Luke ‘FullFlush’ Schwartz and the Voice of Poker Jesse May.
Part One: A Hero Arrives
It seems that wherever I go in the poker world, the man that everyone’s talking about is someone who is rarely seen in the flesh, an entity that hasn’t officially been identified, a near iconic figure who has shaken up the world of high stakes poker and changed the dynamics of the nosebleed tables on Full Tilt Poker forever. Like a caped crusader, he works from the shadows, his mission a seemingly simple one: overthrow the online titans who have ruled for so long. Of course, the Joker will sometimes get the upper hand, but with resistance comes adversity, and although armed with an abundance of courage, our superhero will inevitably face numerous obstacles before conquering his biggest enemies. Isildur is the superhero of the poker world. He is the man that has captured the imagination of an industry without ever removing his mask.
Jesse May says…
Over the Thanksgiving holidays I ran into my Swedish psychiatrist friend Petrus, who lives in Copenhagen and spends his spare hours grinding online poker. “I haven’t slept in a month!” he said to me when we met. “I haven’t either!” I yelled back. And we both laughed. We knew we were talking about Isildur.
“It’s a Swedish thing,” Petrus professed. “Have you read Quereshi’s article about the match? Every Swede is rooting for Isildur. What he’s doing is shaking up the American dominance of the game. I root for him and I root for Sweden.” For me, that was only a small dynamic.
I, like I’m sure all the rest of you, spent maybe 12 hours a day for nearly a month watching intently. Hours next to the desktop or laptop, with four to six tables called up, furiously sweating the big pots between Isildur and any of a number of opponents, as he went from durrrr to Antonius to Cole South and Townsend, with Ziigmund and Ivey thrown in for good measure. If you have any sense of drama and the history of the game, you know you did it too.
At the tail end of October, Isildur decided to ambush the Full Tilt tables with more gusto than anyone before. He didn’t work his way up the ladder gradually; he went straight for the big wigs, the Lex Luthers of the virtual felt. Within hours, he was tackling the likes of Phil Ivey, Patrik Antonius and Ilhari Sahamies at the highest stakes available, often seated with the max and playing up to eight tables simultaneously. Like all superheroes, he was fearless, and had flown in from seemingly nowhere to save the day, to save us from the tedium of watching the same games, the same players, and the same swings. Isildur was braced to change everything, to change the very way in which the nosebleed stakes were played.
Nik Persaud says…
I watched Isildur avidly throughout the whole of November. I’ve been following what’s going on and am vastly aware of how his story is unfolding. I watch him in action for numerous reasons. Of course, it’s entertaining because of the stakes involved and the money passing hands, but it’s also an eye-opener for me and educational in terms of the hands being played and the decisions they are making. These are, after all, some of the best players in the world, so if you watch for long enough you're bound to pick up some interesting things about the game.
The poker world loves a good mystery, and with success comes curiosity, every member of the audience burdened by a thirst to know more. A moniker simply isn’t enough. Todd Brunson, Martin De Knjiff, Barack Obama even – everyone made their guess, but all were way off the mark as Isildur continued to run amok.
As the names continued to seep into the melting pot, there was one suggestion that was emerging more prominent than any other. Viktor Blom, a 21-year old online pro from Sweden was a name more recognisable to European players as the man behind the Blom90 account on iPoker. Perhaps it was a familiar playing style, the outrageous upswing (Blom was rumoured to have previously turned an initial deposit of $2,000 into $1.5 million within the space of a fortnight), or the prediction of Luke ‘FullFlush’ Schwartz, who, like a poker prophet, had warned everyone that Blom would soon be let loose on Full Tilt. Still, nothing was confirmed, and although Tony G outed him in his blog, Blom remained frustratingly aloof, even teasing Bluff Magazine by commenting, “I am not the one you are looking for. Keep searching.”
But people didn’t keep searching, they were happy with their find as all fingers continued to point towards this one person. Like a corrupt police force, they just wanted to put a face to the name, whoever it was, and bring him in without questioning. There was a need for curiosity to be satisfied, and this provided the perfect opportunity. But then, it does of course beg the question as to why Viktor Blom would feel the need to lie if he were indeed Isildur. It’s possible that he adores being an enigma, to donning the mask, but the most likely answer is that as a Scandinavian pro, he doesn’t want to be the recipient of a gargantuan tax bill. Revealing his identity as Isildur would be a financial faux-pas of epic proportions and is probably the main reason why he didn’t accept durrrr’s cordial invitation to the Million Dollar Challenge. Then again, why didn’t Clarke Kent just confess?
Ben Grundy says…
If it’s definitely Blom90, then I’ve certainly played him some. He’s undoubtedly a talented player at Pot Limit Omaha and he destroyed everyone at No Limit. Playing him at $100/200 is more like $200/400 because of the way he plays. The variance playing him is insane. I’ve never played against the Isildur account, but I would have taken him on at $100/200 if I’d had the chance, but after he got a proper ‘roll on Full Tilt he only wanted to play $200/400 and bigger.
Roland De Wolfe says…
I thought it was Viktor Blom, but there are other suspects. When a new player comes along, there's always speculation. There are a few possibilities. Could be Sammy [George], probably not Sammy [laughs].
At first, everything went as smooth as silk. With Tom Dwan as the hapless victim, Isildur’s bankroll began to skyrocket. As he munched manically through durrrr’s finances like an alligator with toothache, he quickly hit the seven-figure mark and had forums awash with threads asking who this new prodigy was. On November 15, just a couple of weeks after storming the scene, Isildur was showing a profit of $5.455.477 on the High Stakes Poker DB ($7 million according to some reports) and had already played more hands in November than players like Ivey, LarsLuzak and Ziigmund had accumulated throughout the entire year. With an unrelenting aggression towards that no one had witnessed at this level before, and a giant set of grapefruits perched firmly between his legs, we were beginning to wonder if Isildur was even human.
Isildur was now a bona fide phenomenon, whatever the future brought. He’d done something no one had ever achieved before: he’d created new swings and put pressure on bankrolls that were previously deemed untouchable. However, Isildur would need to face adversity in order to achieve his ultimate goal, and like most superheroes, that adversity would come in facing his own weaknesses. Everyone has their Kryptonite, there vulnerable side. Unfortunately, Isildur’s kryptonite came in numerous forms.
Read Part Two...