At one point this month Isildur1, whose identity is still not known although it is thought it is a male from Sweden who is nineteen years old, was $5 million in profit after crushing players like Brian Townsend, Phil Ivey, Phil Galfond, Patrik Antonius and Tom Dwan at online poker. Due to the initial success with which Isildur1 dismantled even the best professionals, there was talk of him cheating in some way; although this is not a widely held view. Thousands of railbirds have been watching the online poker action as yet another unknown player with a big wallet and big heart is taking on the best players in the world on the online poker tables.
On the 17th November 2009 Isildur1 sat with Patrik Antonius and they played a marathon online poker session which saw the biggest ever pot seen online of $839,000 (which has since been eclipsed). Antonius won $2,978,963 from Isildur1 on that session. Isildur1 was unhappy as Antonius would not play deep No Limit Heads Up and the two had an argument in the chat with Isildur1 berating him for his approach to the game. There were signs that Isildur1 was tilting as he lost around 50% of his previous ten days winnings. Antonius persuaded him to play heads up PLO which is Isildur1’s worst game according to a tracking site with him losing $2.1 million in around 50,000 hands. If Isildur1 wants to be profitable, he should probably concede he is not good enough at this version of online poker to beat the best players.
Showing signs of tilt at these nosebleed stakes can be extremely painful for any online poker bankroll as Isildur1 has found out. He continued losing until his losses from his richest point were close to $5 million and he was about even according to tracking sites.
It was expected that if Isildur1 busted out then he would become another person on the list of playings who have turned up at the highest stakes of online poker and played the best, won a good amount of money but then lost it all back with a bit extra. As Isildur1 got back to a mere $100,000 in profit for the month which is a small amount considering the amounts wagered people were expecting him to be the next casualty of the high stakes poker game.
Except this player is a little different. After forum regulars and the many thousand players railing the action it became clear after analysing the hands played that Isildur1 really does know how to play poker. There were signs he had a good run but his play was consistent with what was expected by any other top player getting similar cards. This online poker player looks like he may become a permanent part of the high stakes games.
Isildur1 and Patrik Antonius went on to play the biggest ever pot seen online. The eventual pot size was $1,356,947 when Patriks KKA3 preflop held off the higher straight draw from Isildur1. When I watch the hand back you see raise and a series of re-raises pre-flop until the players have both got $81,000 invested before the flop. Patrik re-raises to $779,000 after betting out $91,000 on the flop and being re-raised to $439,000 which is raised all-in by Isildur1 and Patrik calls. With a 452 board the bets suggest that Antonius has hit his draw and has something like A3xx here and as a lower stakes player I was surprised that Isildur1 carried on firing. Both players showed real guts in this hand as Antonius must have known he was facing a hand that could outdraw him. This hand was part of a session where Isildur1 lost more than $2 million. It may be quite some time before this hand is eclipsed in size by any online poker player.
Isildurs current high stakes poker activity can be tracked by visiting poker table ratings which keeps a track of No Limit Texas Hold ‘em stats. Whilst the numbers are not exact, they form a reasonable indication of the success or failure of the player’s current poker play. Isildur1 has managed to build his profit back to around $700,000 with some smaller wins since his losing sessions so we may yet see more fireworks in the high stakes online poker games.
By Malcolm Clarke