It is very hard to say high stakes poker these days without mentioning Isildur1, but who is the anonymous Swedish high stakes poker player, and what is his connection to Martonas, if any exist. The whole poker world is asking these questions from various poker forums, poker portals, poker news sites and even his poker opponents. The Swedish poker invasion has hit the high stakes poker world at Full Tilt Poker with a big bang, and to say least, has turned the existing high stakes poker world upside-down.
The first Swedish player to take on the big names in the high stakes poker games was the unknown Martonas, who first appeared on Full Tilt Poker back in October 2008. At first he didn’t play at the highest poker stakes, but in March 2009 this changed in a big way as he took on all the biggest names on Full Tilt Poker playing $500/$1000 blinds. Some big winning sessions in the beginning quickly made him well-known in the poker world, but after a good start he ended up with about a million dollar loss and has not appeared on Full Tilt Poker since ultimo September 2009.
And then out of nowhere came Swedish Isildur1 on October 23 2009 and suddenly a new Swedish high stakes poker player had taken Martonas spot. Like Martonas he started out playing “small” at only $25/$50, but eventually moved up in stakes beating almost everybody on his way. Isildur1 seemed unstoppable on his way to poker heaven playing very aggressive and fearless.
He eventually took on Tom “durrr” Dwan in what was become tree epic matches in poker history. In all tree matches he seemed on top of durrr, who ended up losing more than 3 million dollars to the newcomer. During this time he also played many other Full Tilt Poker stars like Phil Ivey, Patrick Antonius, Cole South, Brian Townsend and more. Peking at about 6 million dollars in winnings within only 14 days he seemed unbeatable, but eventually he had a losing session against Patrick Antonius. This amounted in some less peculiar records for Isildur1 as he both lost big biggest pot in online poker history and the most money within 24 hours with a $3.224.744 loss.
Since then he has won some back, but the question still remains about who is behind the two Swedish high stakes poker accounts. Many people have guessed on their identity, but mostly things point in the direction of two young guys from Gothenburg Sweden. Rumors within the Swedish high stakes poker community has it that Victor Blom, who is well-known as Blom90 in European poker circles, is behind Isildur1 and as a twist to the story the Martonas account should be his neighbor. Whether this is true or not, it does seem likely that Victor Blom is somewhat connected to both accounts.
Victor Blom who is only 19 years old has so far dominated the European Ipoker network who host sites like William Hill Poker and others, and it does seem quite plausible that he would move on to the big leagues. Another thing pointing in this direction is the fact that Luke “fullflush” Schwarz actually warned about Victor Blom in an interview with Jesse May some time ago. Claiming Blom was one of the best HU NL Holdem players he ever played, and that he might move on to the big sites soon.
At this point in time no one can be sure though as to who is behind the Swedish high stakes poker wonders, but they certainly made an impact. Hopefully he or they will come forward in near future to take credit for this amassing entry on the high stakes poker tables and start playing some live games. In any circumstance they have been a blessing to the high stakes poker games, creating more action for the railbirds than ever before.
