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Isildur1 VS Brian Hastings Rematch

High stakes Pot Limit Omaha star Viktor Blom screen name: ‘Isildur1′ has made huge waves in the online poker scene. Blom sat at six different heads up tables with fellow high stakes poker regular Brian Hastings, at a level that put the $200/$400 game to shame. Six different $500/$1000 Pot Limit Omaha games gave fans everything they wanted to see, and then some. Our first hand was worth an incredible $200,000. Setting the pace for what was yet to come, Blom took this massive pot.

Blom took another huge pot with a flush in this hand. This pot was worth more than $100,000.

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The next hand was bound to be a big one after Blom flopped three fours and Hastings flopped a full house. The two built a monster pot, with Hastings taking Blom’s entire stack on the table, and a pot worth over $225,000.

Blom took another monster pot for Hastings here, rivering a third ace.

This monster hand didn’t go to showdown. An all in move of $65,000 was good enough to force Blom out and take this $200,000 hand.

Another pot worth over $200,000 was decided here. After turning a set, Blom rivered a flush to win this hand.

Blom continued the beating in this hand. Aces held and took down this pot worth more than $200,000.

Blom got it all in here on the flop. With a set of queens, Blom was ahead of the aces and flush draw of Hastings. However, a club on the turn gave Hastings this $200,000 pot.

Hastings again used his all in shove to force his opponent out, taking this big hand.

Blom got it all in with three different pair, leaving six outs for a full house, but did not get there against the straight of Hastings.

The final hand was one of the biggest. The nut flush was good enough for Blom to take this final pot worth $215,000.

On the night, even after losing a few big pots due to luck, Viktor Blom seemed to get back on the right track with a win of over 300k.

See here for one of the last times Isildur1 played Brian Hastings

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Viktor Blom screen name Isildur1 has made huge waves once again with his massive online swings. Today, he took a step in the right direction with his online play. Blom played four heads up tables as well as four full ring Cap Limit Omaha tables. The heads up matches were against Full Tilt Poker Pro David Benefield, while the six max tables saw such online regulars as ‘FakeSky,’ ‘EazyPeazy,’ and ‘SxMxF.’

The first big hand of the day saw Blom take a $32,000 pot from Benefield with a flopped straight.

Two queens were good enough for complete a full boat for Blom in this hand, busting Benefield and winning a $10,000 pot.

Aces were no good for ‘FakeSky’ in this hand. After the flop, the two players capped the pot. ‘EazyPeazy’ had an open ended straight draw, and hit it on both runs to take over $32,000.

Blom capped this pot on the flop after flopping top set. However, a ten on the river gave Benefield this pot.

The high paced heads up game between Benefield andBlom continued with another capped pot here. Blom made a straight here, which was good enough for a pot of $32,000.

Blom continued his big upswing taking another capped pot, this time at a six handed table from ‘SxMxF.’

This pot was capped preflop. While Blom’s kings were far ahead of the queens of Benefield, a queen on the turn sent the pot away from ‘Isildur1′ and to Benefield.

Benefield continued to catch up when his aces took down queens.

However, Blom got it all back in this capped hand, when his top two pair was good enough for this hand.

Blom dropped his unlucky streak of the day when he flopped quad threes the take down Benefield’s queens in this hand.

After both players topped two pair, the pot got capped here. One of their pairs become useless with nines on the turn and river, but Blom was still ahead when it was all said and done, and took down yet another pot.

The final hand saw Blom win yet another capped pot of $32,000 from Benefield after flopping a set of sixes.

On this session, the winner and loser were quite clear. Ever after a miracle queen landed to give Benefield a $32,000 pot, Viktor Blom screen name ‘Isildur1′ was up to the tune of around $250,000 over David Benefield.

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The NBC National Heads-Up Championship just concluded and it was an exciting weekend of poker. Pros, celebrities, and a couple of amateurs all descended on Caesars Palace in Las Vegas looking to take down the $500,000 top prize. Among those in the field were Doyle Brunson, Erik Seidel, Phil Hellmuth, Howard Lederer, Chris Ferguson, Orel Hersheiser, Annie Duke, Paul Wasicka, and Phil Ivey.

Day 1 saw a field of 64 whittled down to 32. Among those that moved on to the second round were Main Event Champions Chris Moneymaker, Jerry Yang, Joe Hachem, Jamie Gold, and Peter Eastgate. Phil Ivey and Gabe Kaplan both advanced as well as Doyle Brunson, Phil Hellmuth and Annette Obrestad.

Day 2 saw the field narrowed from 32 to 8. First, the players had to play to the final 16. Moneymaker, Yang, Gold, and Eastgate all managed to make it into the sweet 16 as well as former November Niner Dennis Phillips. Doyle Brunson headlined those making the sweet 16, as he took on Annette Obrestad. She knocked out Phil Hellmuth heads-up. Gabe Kaplan showed that he is more than a commentator, lasting into the final 16. Barry Greenstein, Eli Elezra, Annie Duke, Scotty Nguyen, Erik Seidel, Phil Laak and Jason Mercier rounded out the field of 16.

Sixteen played to eight to conclude Day 2. Gabe Kaplan’s storybook run ended, but Jerry Yang and Dennis Phillips continued their unlikely runs as they both made the final eight. Scotty Nguyen and Jason Mercier made the elite eight and faced each other. Peter Eastgate made it as well and faced Erik Seidel. Doyle Brunson put the poker world on notice that he isn’t done yet and faced Dennis Phillips. Jerry Yang took his run good against Annie Duke.

The final four has three players that people expected and one they did not. Amazingly, Dennis Phillips took out Doyle to make the final four. Jerry Yang and his “Astronaut suit” went down to Annie Duke. Jason Mercier hit the rail, baby, as Scotty Nguyen advanced. Peter Eastgate didn’t fare any better against Scotty Nguyen.

It was Phillips vs. Duke and Nguyen vs. Seidel in the final four. Phillips never got much going against Duke and eventually went out when his A-8 failed to outrun Duke’s sevens. Scotty Nguyen and Seidel were involved in a big pot. Nguyen flopped top pair with strong kicker with K-9 and Seidel flopped the same pair but worse kicker with 9-7. A seven on the turn gave Seidel two pair, but both players checked. The river fell another nine and Nguyen bet out 100,000 with his trips. Seidel moved all-in and Nguyen made the call. Seidel showed his 9-7 for the full house and the final two was set.

The final of this heads-up championship featured two friends. Erik Seidel, eight time bracelet winner and Full Tilt Poker pro, and Annie Duke, bracelet winner and UB pro. The finals are a best of three, so a player had to win twice to take the title. Annie jumped out to an early lead. The final hand of the first round saw Seidel all-in on a flop of Ks-Js-7h. He held 8s-6s for a flush draw. Duke held As-Kd for top pair. The turn fell the Jh and river the Ah and Duke was up 1-0.

Match two was pretty much one sided as Seidel controlled the action from the opening bell. The final hand of the match saw a short stacked Annie all-in with Kh-5d and Seidel with 8s-7h. The flop of 6h-9d-4h gave Seidel a straight draw. The turn fell the 5h to fill Seidel’s straight, but Duke now had a flush draw. The river fell the 9s and we were knotted at one a piece.

Seidel took a sizable chip lead in the third match and looked destined to win the whole thing. Then a huge hand went down between the two that swung momentum into Duke’s favor. After a raise to 80,000 by Seidel pre-flop, Duke shoved. Seidel called with Ad-Kd and had Duke’s Qd-9d crushed. Diamonds were not a girls best friend in this case. However, clubs were as the board fell Qc-4c-10c to give duke the lead with a pair of queens. Seidel needed an ace or a king to take down the hand and the title. The turn and river both fell nines and Duke took a 3 to 1 chip lead.

It didn’t take long before Seidel tried for his own double up. He moved all-in with Ah-2c and Duke called with pocket nines. The flop was about as bad as you could want for Seidel’s hand as it fell 8h-6h-7c to give duke an open-ended draw. The turn fell the 5d to complete Duke’s draw. Seidel’s only chance was for one of the remaining nines to hit the river. The river fell the 8s and Annie Duke was the champion.

Annie Duke is the 2010 NBC National Heads-up Champion. She took the title and $500,000 in prize money. She had no easy road to the finals as she had to beat Andy Bloch, Darvin Moon, Paul Wasicka, and Dennis Phillips to get her shot at close friend Erik Seidel. She ran well at the right time and took down this prestigious event. Congratulations to Annie Duke, NBC National Heads-up Champion.

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Mass commotion broke out at the Pokerstars EPT Berlin Poker tournament yesterday afternoon. The EPT was robbed by 6 men with masks on bearing pistols, machetes, knives, and are alleged to have held assault rifles. The robbery was thwarted for the most part by a single security guard by the name of Roman. There may have been other security guards doing there duty elsewhere that is not caught on the video, but that is not known at the moment. Roman, on the other hand, was caught on video filled with adrenaline, and doing some damage to the masked bandits in a most heroic effort.

Roman – Kuhr Security Hero

Roman holding bandit – gun on the ground

Fearless Roman confronts two bandits by himself

Roman has already become a hero to the world wide poker community. Roman is the reason that the poker bandits only got away with a small amount of money if any. He was throwing comment boxes from the desk at them, hurling poles that hold up the line ropes, and anything he could do to to stop them. He managed to tackle one of the masked poker bandits, and put them in a choke hold. The gun is seen in the picture, proving the masked men had at least pistols, and proving Roman showed that he had absolutely no fear for his life. The other bandits returned yielding large sticks or 2×4s to get their accomplice. They managed to flee to their getaway car, but were only successful in getting some of the prize pool (if any). This security guard displayed the highest level of altruism and should be rewarded for his bravery.

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Full Video of EPT Berlin Robbery

Roman was interviewed by German news:

German reporter: “We got one witness with us, Roman, you are from the security Team (Security-Kuhr), you were involved in this conflict, how can u describe what happened there ?”

Roman: “It was really scary, with how much brutality the gangsters were acting, I was just standing there minding my own business and securing the money, happy about the fact that the day was calm and nothing happened, suddenly there is shouting and screaming coming from the hallway and the people (gangsters) rush the cashier floor with huge brutality and even armed… it was really scary.”

German reporter: “You are injured, but you got to get hold of one of the gangsters, you were trying to get the money back from him… were you successful ?”

Roman: “Yeah, thank god, we were successful… we got a huge amount of the money back from the gangsters, one of the employees of the hotel helped me there, but we couldn’t secure the gangster because he got rescued by his friends.”

German reporter: “Which weapons were used ? We saw a machete, there were rumours about grenades, kalashnikovs, guns, pump-guns etc.?”

Roman: “I can only verify the machete and a hand-held gun.”

German reporter: “So you really tried to get hold of the gangsters even though u were unarmed and they were armed with guns?”

Roman: “Yeah, in the first moment I didn’t think of the fact that they will use the guns against me, and I just wanted to stop them from what they were doing in that particular moment.”

German reporter: “Brave.”

Security for the event was provided by Kuhr Security in Germany. The owner of Kuhr security is Michael Kuhr, who is a 5 time world kick boxing champion. Surely with Micheal Kuhr’s fighting instincts, he was able to hand pick his staff and know that they are properly trained. Roman’s actions are a testament to Kuhr security, but unfortunately it seems they were under staffed and not armed. Perhaps the Hyatt Hotel did not spend enough on the security, or the ETP did not want to dish out extra funds for security. One thing is for sure, there was not enough security at the event for the amount of money that was present.

Kuhr security

If I was in need of a body guard like some of these big name pros like Tom Dwan or Patrik Antonius, I would hire Roman or the security team at Kuhr Security. If I was running a poker tournament, I would be sure to hire enough people to guard the prize money if it wasn’t in a well guarded hotel and casino in Las Vegas.

I can only speculate that the robbers were part of a Vietnamese gang that are present in Berlin, and that at least two of them were blood relatives. It seems unlikely that they would come back for their accomplice, but not grab the money on the ground. IMO at least two were brothers for him to come back like that, unless they were worried the bandit who was caught would narc them out. I’m guessing Vietnamese because of their presence in Berlin, the color of their hair, their size, and the use of machetes and knives.

When all is said and done, nobody was seriously injured and tournament played resumed later that day.

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