After splitting heads-up matches against Isaac Haxton and Tony G, Viktor “Isildur1” Blom now has a winning record in the PokerStars SuperStar Showdown with his recent victory over Dan “jungleman12” Cates.
Cates was considered to be Blom’s toughest competition since he finished 2010 as the top online poker player by earning $5.5 million in profits – and this isn’t even counting the rakeback money he earned! Some people even speculated that Cates would best the Swedish pro in this 2,500-hand matchup.
However, it looked like Isildur1 would walk away with the contest in the early going since he went up $30,000 over Cates after just a few hundred poker hands. However, Cates battled back to eventually take a $30,000 lead on Blom through aggressive play that plenty of railbirds were learning poker tips from.
Amazingly though, the heads-up match continued to swing back and forth as both players exchanged the lead. Towards the end, Blom overtook the lead, and started to slowly increase it as the contest raged on. Unfortunately, there were no fireworks in the end when Isildur1 cruised to a $51,196 victory over Cates. After the game, both players congratulated each other as Blom improved his SuperStar Showdown record to 2-1.
Interestingly enough, the internet poker world has already begun speculating about who Blom’s next opponent will be. Obviously there’s no way of knowing at this point, but Daniel Negreanu’s name is being thrown around a lot. After the game between Cates and Isildur1 was over, Negreanu chatted with Blom about the specifics of the challenge, which definitely raised some intrigue.
After some unsuccessful showings on the TV show High Stakes Poker, Negreanu has been on a mission to improve his cash game play. He has been playing on PokerStars’ high stakes poker tables in an effort to compete with the world’s best cash game players. Negreanu, who is the all-time leader in live poker tournament winnings, was honored by PokerStars when they named several high stakes tables “Daniel’s Room.”