The name Viktor " Isildur1 " Blom is familiar to all poker fans. Seventeen years ago, he rose to the highest stakes, beating virtually all the top players in PLO and NLHE along the way. The 18-year-old Isildur could win a couple of million in a single session, only to lose it even faster. Constant ups and downs became Blom's calling card.
Over time, Viktor mastered limit games. He also played non-stop in these new disciplines, giving the strongest players a run for their money. It ended badly for him—Isildur lost not only all his money but also got into a multi-million dollar debt.
For a while, nothing was heard from Viktor; rumor had it he was living somewhere in Sweden and seemed to have given up poker forever. But in recent years, he's started coming to Las Vegas for the World Series of Poker, where he's been showing decent results. Viktor primarily plays limit tournaments, but his best result came in the $100k Hold'em High Roller.
After the 2025 WSOP, Isildur returned to online poker.
Almost immediately after its launch, Phenom Poker included him among its first ambassadors. Viktor began playing the highest limits, but his results were disappointing. In the summer of 2025, he lost $1.5 million and disappeared again for a while.
Then, the winning streak began in April of this year. Viktor made a splash again, rising from $13,000 to $1.75 million in 10 days. The Phenom Poker blog compiled the most interesting moments of this rise.
Over 10 days, Viktor played 20,995 hands, his best result was a plus of $1.075 million in a day, and on his worst day he lost $451k.
According to Phenom, Viktor's biggest win ($1.2 million) was in one of his favorite games, 2-7 Triple Draw, which he won in 3,631 hands at the $2k/$4k limit.
Timofey "Trueteller" Kuznetsov once took lessons in this game from Viktor:
"In 2-7, I studied Isildur's sessions for a while. I took shares from him and watched him play. He played purely by intuition and practice, but he did it well, and I learned some basic things thanks to him."
Viktor won $576k in Limit Omaha Hi-Lo, which took him 3,694 hands.
His longest session was 8 game, where he earned $115k in 11,675 hands.
Recordings of the latest sessions are available on Kick – Blom, Alexander Kostritsyn, Johannes Becker, Chris Hook, and others play two tables of $2k/$4k for 7 hours.
At one point, Blom had more than $800k across two tables.
Isildur finished the session heads-up against Johannes Becker. Viktor started the match with a stack of $300,000 and finished with $610,000. Johannes conceded defeat and sat out.
It was on this day that Viktor won more than a million.
On another day, Viktor played two heads-up matches simultaneously – 8 game with Kostritsyn and Omaha Hi-Lo with Volker “RaúlGonzalez” Stürmer.
During the match with Alexander, Blom said that an unpleasant incident had happened to him.
Viktor Blom: Looks like someone took my order lol
Alexander Kostritsyn: Lol what
Viktor Blom: Order for food
Alexander Kostritsyn: Yeah. Was it so good?
Viktor Blom: Seems like it lol
The most unfriendly game was five-card Omaha High, with Viktor losing $233K in 902 hands.
Isildur played his five biggest pots in PLO5 at the $200/$400 limit against Georgian player Teimurazi Tabagari.
1. $166,881 – 10-High Flush vs Viktor's Kings
Isildur four-bet $10,800, Tabagari called. The flop was checked.
On the turn, Blom led out to 14,251, Tabagari reraised to $64,347. Blom shoved and was called.
The river was a , and Tabagari made a flush to beat Viktor.
2. $165,136 – Full House vs Full House
Viktor called a four-bet of 10,800. He flopped a full house and check-raised $7,125 to $21,500.
Teimurazi called. On the turn, Isildur shoved. Tabagari called and showed a better full house.
3. $150,189 – Straight vs Straight
Viktor three-bet and three-barreled, moving all-in on the river.
Viktor had the nuts on the flop, and the pot was his.
4. $123,578 – Top Two vs Lower Two Pair
Blom three-bet and continuation bet $4,747 on the flop. He continued his aggression on the turn with a bet of $16,687. Teimurazi shoved for $53,445.
Viktor called, but didn't improve on the river.
Not much is known about Teimurazi Tabagari. He primarily plays PLO5 and seems to disregard authority. There's a recording of his session against Venividi1993 on YouTube.
You can view players' results on the website phenomdb.com, but only by week.
Between April 13 and 19, when the main action took place, Viktor won $1.4 million.
The player with the most negative results during this period was RaúlGonzalez.
Today, April 20th, play continued with 8 game at the $2,000/$4,000 limit.
Initially, it was a five-player game, but right now, the two main winners of last week, Blom and Kryuk, are playing heads-up at two tables. We'll be keeping an eye on how things unfold.
