Phil Galfond schrijft over Viktor ‘Isildur1’ Blom

Enkele dagen geleden verscheen er een mooie blogpost van Phil Galfond over zijn ervaringen met Viktor ‘Isildur1’ Blom. Galfond, de highstaker die bekend staat om zijn solide spel en professionele aanpak, beschrijft in “The Man, The Myth, The Legend” onder meer over Bloms persoonlijkheid en zijn passie voor het spel. “Viktor (…) is one of those guys that you can instantly tell is a truly nice and genuine good person.”

Galfond beschrijft onder meer hoe Blom in staat is om met zijn enorme swings, van soms wel tonnen op een dag, om te gaan. “The main thing that came across to me was Viktor’s pure love for the game.  My impression from talking to him was that he genuinely doesn’t care about the money.  I know some people say they don’t care… but they care.  I’m not sure Viktor does.  He plays poker because he has fun playing and he enjoys the competition”, aldus Galfond.

Ook ging hij in op de diepe run van Blom in het $50k Poker Players Championship, eerder deze zomer tijdens de WSOP (Blom eindigde als 14e, goed voor $105.235). “If you could have heard him describe playing the $50k 8-game WSOP event, which included six games he didn’t know how to play, you’d understand what I mean.  He was so excited to be playing in such a huge event and to attempt to learn the games on the fly.  He looked like a kid in an arcade who’s Dad had just given him $500 worth of quarters.“

De hamvraag die Galfond vaak te verduren krijgt is natuurlijk: is Viktor Blom nou echt zo goed? Galfond dook hier dieper op in en eindigde met niets dan lovende woorden over zijn Zweedse opponent: When I first played PLO against Viktor back on FTP, he was bad.  Now, he wasn’t a bad poker player.  He was already world class at NLHE, but he had just started playing a game that was completely different, and had jumped in to the highest stakes possible.  He overvalued weak pair+draw type hands, weak two pair, and all the other hands the typical NL convert misplays.

At the end of last year, once Viktor and I started playing on Stars, I was shocked by how far his PLO game had progressed over such a short period of time.  Not only had he corrected most of the leaks I’d seen earlier, but he was playing a style that was new to me, and forced me to think very hard about my own game. By early 2012, Viktor had not only become very good at PLO- he’d become the toughest opponent I’ve ever played against. Now he’s one of three opponents that I play with but genuinely have no clue whether I have an edge or not.”

De gehele blog valt te lezen op PhilGalfond.com en is dankzij Galfonds prettige schrijfstijl een aanrader.