High-Stakes Poker Report: Blom Falls Off, Down $1m in 2015

Less than a month into the new year, we’re starting to see where things are going.

Alexander Kostritsyn is still in a class of his own. Viktor Blom keeps losing massive amounts of money (and nobody knows where it comes from). PLO is coming back to life.

The big looming question: Is the great Isildur1 now a bad investment?

Meanwhile, the biggest winner of last week was Elior “CrazyElior” Sion.

CrazyElior Top, Ravenswood13 Flop

Ravenswood13 did one thing notable well last week — he made sure that the nosebleed tables were running.

The unidentified player kept the $200/$400 PLO tables going and later moved up to $400/$800 8-Game, where he transferred a lot of money to one player: Elior Sion from London.

CrazyElior is only 24 but he’s already a regular at the high stakes. He made his first appearance in 2011 and since then his only way has been up.

His favorite games are Pot Limit Omaha and 8-Game, where he went off for $500k in profits for most of last year. Unfortunately he caught a downswing in December that brought him down to -$100k, but now it seems like he’s coming back.

After battling Ravenswood13 last week Sion became the most profitable player of the week with $350k on the plus side of his bankroll.

His opponent dropped to the bottom of the table, losing over $400k within seven days.

Isiludr1 Down Another Million

Alexander Kostritsyn is playing in a league of his own again this year. He is now mostly playing as joiso on PokerStars, and he’s literally playing with his opponents.

Three times in January he was the best online player and by now he’s already up over $1 million for the year.

He is 26 years old now and, unlike in the past, he’s not going on tilt anymore which is keeping him from bad downswings.

It’s obvious: To become the best player of the year, you will have to beat Alexander Kostritsyn.

The situation is much different for Viktor Blom. Since mid-2013 the player originally from Gothenburg has lost nearly $5m million on Full Tilt. Add to that the $2m he lost on PokerStars.

In 2015 he’s already down another $1 million, and you might ask yourself what happened to the superman of poker? Why does his game not pay off at the high-stakes anymore?

Also: When will his stakers realize that it’s maybe not worth invest any more money in him?

Biggest Pot of the Week

The 10 largest hands of this year were all played on January 21. They also demonstrate a little change of trend as players are flocking back to the PLO tables again.

EireAbu, AckmaJin, Ravenswood13 and Ilari Sahamies were all at it and gave plenty of action.

By far the largest pot was played by EireAbu and Ravenswood13 heads-up. Ravenswood13 opened and after a 3-bet and a call there was $7,200 in the middle. The flop fell

EireAbu lead out with an $1,800 bet and his opponent flat called. The turn was the

Now EireAbu put on some more pressure and bet $10k. Ravenswood13 called again. The last community card was the

Now all the money went in. EireAbu bet $33k from first position, Ravenswood13 moved all-in for $103k and EireAbu made the call. These were the hands at showdown:

EireAbu:

Ravenswood13:

Both players hit the nuts on the river so the largest pot of the year so far was split up and half of the $240k went to each player. Justice.