Poker Blog & Poker Forum

We all know the real identities of Batman, Superman and even Zorro. But the real identity of Isildur1 remains poker’s most closely guarded secret. Most poker players say he is Viktor Blom (the man in the picture) and some may even bet on it. But Blom has denied it. Top online poker room PokerStars will soon make the disclosure but not before they have milked it to the hilt.

PokerStars has signed up Isildur1 as a member of Team PokerStars Pro. But neither his real name nor his photograph appears at their web site for now and he will participate in online poker tournaments as Isildur1. After recounting the meteoric entry Isildur1 made in the poker world, PokerStars says, “But what makes Isildur1 even more of an enigma is that no-one knows his or her true identity. Is this player really a young starlet with the guts to take on the world’s best? Or is it a seasoned professional who, under a new guise, has been taking everyone to the cleaners?”

High Stakes DB says that Isildur1 was “the best thing to happen to online poker in 2009”. He jumped directly into the nosebleed stakes circuit at Full Tilt Poker and shocked everyone. He won more than $4 million off Tom “durrrr” Dwan, though he lost it all to Card Runners pro Brian Hastings. This is how Isildur1 responded to the greatest signing up in a long time. “I chose to join PokerStars because it’s the biggest site and it will be an exciting challenge. It means a great deal to be playing in a team alongside players such as Daniel Negreanu, Dario Minieri and Johnny Lodden.” He said that his goal was to improve his live game for some upcoming events, continue to focus on no-limit heads-up Hold’em and also try to develop his Pot Limit Omaha game.

The first assignment for Isildur1 will be the newly launched spectacular cash game event, the SuperStar Showdown, in which he will challenge all-comers to take him on at the nosebleed stakes. Then during or just before the PCA in January 2011, the grand unmasking will take place. It will be a pity if after all this hype Isuldur1 turns out to be Viktor Blom.

Recently the induction to the Women in Poker Hall of Fame was completed with poker babe Jennifer Harman making the grade. Now it is tome for the gender neutral and more acknowledged WSOP sponsored Poker Hall of Fame to take center stage. The nomination process was underway from July 1 to August 31 and WSOP has just released the names of the top 10 nominated individuals. They are Chris Ferguson, Barry Greenstein, Jennifer Harman-Traniello, Dan Harrington, Phil Ivey, Linda Johnson, Tom McEvoy, Daniel Negreanu, Scotty Nguyen and Erik Seidel.

Of these, only Ivey and Negreanu have a realistic chance of induction. It would be criminal to put in Jennifer ahead of Annie Duke and one wonders why Annie is not on the list. Nguyen is too much the bad man of poker to be in the Hall of Fame. The rest are non runners.

Ivey is doing great things in poker. He is the youngest player to have won 8 WSOP bracelets, he has made almost $20 million in high stakes poker cash games at Full Tilt Poker and even has a poker room named after him. The four criteria for induction of poker players are they must have played poker against acknowledged top competition, played for high stakes, played consistently well gaining the respect of peers and stood the test of time. Ivey has been playing for 10 years now and the only question is whether that counts as having stood the test of time. If not this year then a few years down the line, but Ivey has booked a place in the Poker Hall of Fame.

Negreanu would have been the ideal candidate this year and his time is due with many of his peers like Phil Hellmuth already in the Hall of Fame. The only problem is that Negreanu seems to be losing the respect of his peers and his calling Annie Duke a f****** c*** in public will not help.

The 17 living Poker Hall of Fame members and a blue ribbon media panel will then cast votes to determine the class of 2010. The enshrinement ceremony will be held in concert with the Final Table of the Main Event of the WSOP in November in Las Vegas.

Full Tilt Poker is the online poker room where most of the high stakes action on the Internet takes place. HighstakesDB tracks the betting at Full Tilt Poker on a hand to hand basis and compiles the results into the biggest winners and losers every month.

Phil Ivey tops the list of winners for August 2010 with just over $2 million against his name, which is way ahead of the next poker professional at Full Tilt Poker. If things continue this way then Ivey can cross more than $20 million in life time winnings in September. For someone who started out only in October 2006 this is a huge feat. Ivey crossed the $5 million mark in September 2008, the $10 million mark in April 2009 and the $15 million mark in November 2009. And all this is at Full Tilt Poker only. The biggest single pot won by Ivey was of $832,940 in November 2009.

Numbers two and four on the August 2010 list are jungleman12, real name Dan Cates, and durrrr, real name Tom Dwan. Cates has won $1.1 million in August at Full Tilt Poker and Dwan has won $0.7 million. Cates and Dwan make an interesting combination because they have a challenge going between them, which is popularly called The Durrrr Challenge 2. The first challenge, between Dwan and Patrik Antonius, went into hibernation after 19 months of slow paced progress because Antonius is so far behind that he has no hope of catching up. Fortunately for poker fans the second Durrrr Challenge has started at a brisk pace and 10% of the slated number of games has already been completed. As things stand now, Dwan is down by half a million dollars but it is early days. Fans are hoping that this contest will not become one sided and slow down to a snail’s pace. Dwan started playing at Full Tilt Poker in November 2006, about the same time as Ivey. However Dwan has had a volatile life with maximum cumulative winnings at $8 million in April 2010. He is currently at $5 million.

The biggest loser in August 2010 is Gus Hansen at $2.9 million. Like someone at a poker forum remarked, Full Tilt Poker should change his password and forget to tell him.

Phil Ivey Poker Room to Open with a Bang

Great as Phil Ivey’s achievements are, there are many in the poker fraternity who would feel that Ivey has not yet done enough to deserve a poker room named after him. But the Aria Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas thought otherwise and decided to open a private high-stakes poker room named after the iconic player.

The inauguration is set for May 21, 2010, and it promises to be a classy affair. The invitation reads “Aria Resort and Casino, the heart of CityCenter, is revealing our exclusive new high-limit poker room, The Ivey Room. To commemorate this special occasion, you are on the Dean’s List to compete in this prestigious event.” The prestigious event is a $1 million invitational freeroll. The festivities begin on May 21 with a cocktail reception. The tournament will be held on May 22. The highlight of the event will be a heads-up between the tournament winner and Ivey for $250,000, which will take place immediately after the tournament in The Ivey Room. Added attractions are bounties on special players. Ivey will have a bounty of $100,000 and other players will have bounties totaling $200,000.

Ivey is known as much for his off-the-tables achievements and perhaps those contribute more towards his popularity. He was recently on the cover of Cigar Aficionado. Ivey’s penchant for prop bets is well known and rumor has it that he has placed the biggest prop bet in the history of poker. He bet Howard Lederer $5 million that he will add two more WSOP bracelets to his tally of seven within two years. Those who think this is a tough ask would be reminded that Ivey won two bracelets last year itself. I am betting that Lederer will be down five million by July 2010.

Cardrunners is one of the most popular and successful online poker training resources. One of its mainstays has been co-owner and lead instructor Cole South. In a poker blog at the Cardrunners website South has written that he will be leaving the company this month, both as an owner and as an instructor. South was quick to point out that there are no differences between him and the other owners of Cardrunners and leaving the company has been a heart-wrenching decision for him. At the age of 22, South has been trying to juggle three full-time occupations for the last one year and has not been able to do justice to any of them. He is a student of economics at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. and he wants to complete his degree and therefore he could not leave this out. He is also a professional poker player and finally an instructor at Cardrunners. He is an instructor because of his excellence as a poker player and giving that up would mean giving up both vocations. Therefore the axe has fallen on Cardrunners.

One can’t say for sure what his colleagues at the Full Tilt poker tables will think of this decision. Bereft of the pressures of work at Cardrunners South is bound to hit them hard. By mid-February this year South was the biggest winner, up by nearly $3 million in cash game earnings. In March he dropped almost $2.5 million to Tom Dwan, Ilari Sahamies and Isildur1. So maybe South wants to focus on the nosebleed stakes and send a signal that he is still the kind of cash games player that earned the respect of his peers.

In the poker blog that South has titled “Moving On and Good Luck” he gets sentimental about his stint with Cardrunners. He writes, “My favorite part about being here has been the people and the community. I’ve been lucky to make great friends with Taylor, Andrew, and everyone else involved with the business. … I want to give a special thanks to all of the members of Cardrunners for making learning and teaching poker fun. Good luck.”