Isildur1 Dominates For Days Then Hits The Hastings Wall

Viktor “Isildur1” Blom has been creating a lot of headlines for the poker press, but very few of them have been in his favor. The online poker star has largely failed to live up to the hype since signing on with Team PokerStars. For one, his live tournament career has been a total bust; Blom has yet to post a final table finish in MTT competition. Even the high stakes heads-up competition that PokerStars designed specifically for him – the SuperStar Showdown – got off to a rough start when Blom bombed against his first challenger, non-entity Isaac Haxton.

Only one month into 2011, though, it looks like we might be getting the old Isildur1 back. Fresh off another live fail in France, Blom bumped his SuperStar Showdown record up to 2-1 when he handed his latest challenger, Dan “jungleman12” Cates, a pretty decisive loss earlier this week. Isildur1 has ridden the momentum from that victory all the way back into the black, essentially erasing his disappointing PokerStars losses from earlier this winter.

The other high stakes heads-up players have practically been lining up to pad Isildur1’s bankroll the last couple days. On Monday alone he netted over a quarter million; a large portion of that figure came from CardRunners pro Mike Gorodinsky. On Tuesday, Blom was back for more. His biggest challenge was an old foe – Phil Galfond. Galfond and Isildur1 have butted heads more than once before, and overall Galfond has come out far ahead. Isildur1 really is a changed player, though, and he proved that when he handed Galfond a nearly $150,000 beating.

You’d think no one would be brave enough to step in front of the Isildur1 train tonight, but Galfond was immediately followed by Ashton Griffin and then fellow online pro Kanu7. Those two opponents collectively donated more than $200,00 more to the Blom fund. And then the unthinkable happened; Isildur1’s most bitter opponent – Brian Hastings – crashed the party.

Hastings handed Isildur1 some pretty devastating losses in the past when he was still playing on Full Tilt, to the tune of more than $4 million. Many have speculated that it was those losses that actually drove Blom to make PokerStars his permanent home. At the time of this article, Blom and Hastings had already gone two rounds with Hastings finishing the first far ahead and Blom gaining some ground, but still trailing, after the second. According to PokerTableRatings, Isildur1 has thus far lost around $80,000 to Hastings’ FTP persona $tinger 88.

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