Stefan11222 vs Limitless: Analysis of Insane 2021 Cash Game

Dmitry Brdz1: Today, we'll tell you about one of the most memorable events in poker history—a showdown between two of the strongest players of their generation, a match that left neither player the same. Both possessed exceptional skill and were genuinely determined to inflict a painful defeat on each other. Essentially, it was a match for the title of the best in the world, with a completely unpredictable outcome.

Aurora, a high-stakes regular, will help us remember everything. Hi, Alexey!

Alexey Avr0ra: Hello everyone! Many would have disputed the phrase "Match for the title of the best in the world" at the time, but the winner of the duel earned that title.

Poker duels are not uncommon, but they are usually poorly covered, so only connoisseurs follow them. Stefan and Limitless' match was a notable exception. There were two main reasons for this.

The first was the initial intrigue. The odds were even, and there were truly a lot at stake, millions of dollars. The second was the detailed coverage of the fight on Stefan's blog.

Brdz1: Shortly before the match, Stefan and Wiktor gave interviews in which they tried to antagonize each other, further fueling the rivalry.

In the same interview, Stefan demonstrated a comparison of their results on PokerStars in 2020: his win rate is 10 EV bb/100, while Wiktor's is minus 1.3 EV bb/100, although they won comparable amounts.

Stefan entered this match as one of the strongest 3-max+ regulars, with the best results in replays. His aggressive and creative style quickly captured the attention of the poker community. Spectators watched his confrontation with the world's strongest players with great interest.

[From a previous A-Game video]:

Nikolay dyrdom1 : I'm sitting in some spot and thinking, "The main thing is that he doesn't do that shit now, people never do that!" And, damn, he always does! And he can do it without frequencies, he just felt it and went!

In every poker interview, if they've played NL5k at least once in their life, Stefan is mentioned. It's a poker theorem.

Avr0ra: Stefan wasn't well known to the general English-speaking audience back then. He didn't play high-stakes live poker; he didn't play super high stakes, and back then, the pro blogs were mostly read by his peers.

However, among cash game players, especially those who crossed paths with him at the tables, Stefan was already a true legend.

Brdz1: Just a few months before the interview, Stefan spoke positively about Limitless's level of play:

Victor is obsessed with the game like no one else. Specifically, the competitive aspect. At the same time, he's talented, cunning, and motivated like no one else. A true killer.
Just like in the UFC, Connor McGregor.

Just two days later, Limitless' interview came out, and he mentioned that even Fedor was stronger than Stefan.

In the interview, Wiktor moves from words to action and challenges Stefan to a match:

Was the match against Stefan different from the others? Maybe there was something personal about it?
"Yes, I want to show everyone where he stands in the poker hierarchy. I even want to repeat Khabib's phrase: 'I want to make him humble.' Stefan has been avoiding me for a long time, while still trash-talking me harshly in the PS chat and elsewhere. So, I'm publicly challenging Stefan to a challenge—50,000 hands of HUNL at a stake no lower than NL20,000. Each player will only be able to end the challenge early if they lose at least one million dollars. If Stefan declines this challenge, I think the GipsyTeam community will be able to decide for themselves whether Stefan's words match his actions and whether he's a coward full of air."

Victor also hints that there is a gap between them as players.

In Stefan's group, $100/$200 is already considered a "nosebleed" game. But for us, $100/$200 is the lowest stakes, which we play more or less competitively. Naturally, in such a low-stakes game, I don't trade shares with anyone.

Alexey Avr0ra: Stefan was undoubtedly one of the best 3-6-max players in the world at the end of 2020. He'd already logged a significant amount of time at NL2K and NL5K and was absolutely crushing those stakes.

The picture shows only the results from PokerStars, and there was also 888poker, which was one of the main poker rooms at the time, and GGPoker was already there. A well-deserved top winner with a unique playing style! At a time when other 6-max players were trying to imitate some solver concepts, Stefan played incredibly brazenly and wasn't shy about pushing his ranges hard.

From the outside, out of context, it's easy to spot a ton of gross errors and simply bad hands, but all of this was more than compensated for by his brilliant, targeted adjustments to his opponents. Stefan was especially good in replays, as he could irritate almost any opponent.

I'll never forget one 3-max reg game we played. It was actually me, Stefan, and Luke "pokerkluka" – a professional player from Holland.

Stefan was doing very well. And when a player with that style gets good hands, it's lights out. Poor Luke was literally hit by a train. He was stacked every other hand. Anyone who's played Stefan knows this stuff.

And when Luke finally decided to gigabluff catch with second pair, he was, naturally, shown a razor-thin value bet that shouldn't have been there in theory. Old Luke was absolutely furious—he went to the chat to write about Stefan's re-up: "How is it even possible to make a mistake every other hand and still not win?!"

Stefan usually enjoyed trash-talking in the chat, not shying away from personal attacks. I think he'd been banned from the chat many times because of it. But at that moment, he responded succinctly: " If only you knew, brother, how many times I've heard that phrase."

Why then, did Victor underestimate Stefan so much? Let me speculate.

I think the reason is that 2020 saw the start of the most expensive games on GG, which Stefan completely missed.

At the time, Steph had no respect for backing and always played with 100% of himself. He also refused to play beyond the high stakes—NL40,000 and higher. He didn't like selling shares, arguing that later he wouldn't have the motivation to play at NL5,000 and lower.

Victor, on the other hand, always played for the highest stakes. He used aggressive bankroll management, selling action to his friends and colleagues. And, in fact, there was room to sell and something to play. In August and September 2020, there were some truly legendary NL200k games. The action revolved around Tan Shuan, a Chinese businessman, and Crazy Trader, a Frenchman from Hong Kong. I'm not sure what he did exactly—probably a trader! Orders at the tables were as high as half a million. Limitless was very active in these games—he'd hold the lobby for days and did very well.

Therefore, Victor considered himself a player of a higher level.

Brdz1: Wiktor's rise through the stakes a few years earlier was remarkable and rapid. His father is a professional athlete.

Victor followed in his father's footsteps from childhood, but after two serious injuries, he discovered poker and decided to focus entirely on it, bringing his athletic approach and professionalism to the game.

In an early interview, Victor said that during the transition period between sports and poker, he'd go to a morning workout, then play poker for four to five hours, then an evening workout, and end the day with another poker session. Then it all started again.

This approach was bound to produce results, and by the end of 2020, Limitless was already a full-fledged poker superstar, known in both the Russian- and English-speaking communities.

Unlike Stefan, Wiktor had experience going head-to-head with the world's best players, including LLinusLLove, MunEZ_StaRR, ButtonClickr, and Fiilismies. Stefan ranked Wiktor fourth in his personal top players, comparing him to Conor McGregor, while placing himself fifth. For those who have followed Stefan for a long time, this speaks volumes about how they perceived Wiktor's level of play.

Avr0ra: Wiktor was considered a very strong high-stakes player. His biggest victory of that time was against moglimiranda, who was considered the final boss of a 1v1 game. The German heads-up player dominated the lobby in all the major poker rooms. Wiktor challenged him – they played approximately 20,000 hands and won the match decisively. It's even fair to say that that match ended moglimiranda's career: after the defeat, he never appeared online again.

Victor also held tables in the ultra-high-stakes games on GG and was willing to play heads-up. He was undoubtedly at the peak of his career, especially in terms of confidence. He was ready to play any player and under any conditions.

A funny story from those days: Fedor Holz, a well-known MTT player, agreed to play a show match with Wiktor when he became GG's ambassador. The only condition was that Wiktor had to drink a full bottle of wine.

Of course, it was a show and they were playing at the same table, but the fact is indicative.

Limitless vs Stefan: The Duel Begins

Dima Brdz1: On February 7, 2021, the parties agreed on the terms and began the match. The players decided to play 30,000 hands of NL10K with a double crossbook in Bitcoin and the right to fold if one side loses $1,000,000. They had until early summer to complete the entire tournament.

Alexey Avr0ra: The crossbook was necessary in this case to avoid depositing too much money into the room. Stars didn't accept crypto back then, and deposit and withdrawal limits weren't the highest. Basically, it was just for convenience. Keep in mind that the game was played at twice the price, and all amounts in the charts can be multiplied by two.

The arguments and insults on the blog—in my opinion, it was all a bit overdone, in the spirit of MMA trash talk, which Stefan loved. Perhaps it sometimes crossed the line in the table chat. But I'm sure Wiktor didn't take it personally.

Speaking of the pre-match setup, there are a lot of interesting nuances. Again, these are just my memories, and I could be wrong.

Victor was very confident in his own abilities and, in my opinion, underestimated Stefan. Victor's friends, Trueteller, and especially Katya_18, considered Stefan to be a weak player. Historically, Katya played very high stakes and rarely even played NL5k. And when Stefan came to his tables, he was already a bit of a wreck—he wasn't playing his strongest. He didn't do this on purpose, it just happened that way—his dispersion, so to speak. Because of this, Katya_18 overestimated Stefan's weaknesses.

Before the match started, Victor was naturally considered the clear favorite. Katya_18 and Trueteller had huge bankrolls, and I think they're still doing just fine. Victor was also ready to take on a lot of money.

It was easy to bet on Stefan; many people were ready to accept. There were also significant bets on Wiktor, since the people around Stefan who had helped him, worked with him on his game, and prepared for the match saw that he was in excellent form and was extremely serious. When Stefan is extremely serious, you wouldn't wish such an opponent on your enemy.

I understand exactly how it works here—you can carefully outplay Stefan as long as he doesn't notice you and doesn't see you as a mortal enemy. If Stefan is turned against himself, he'll simply tear you apart.

Steph has been incredibly strong in 2021.

Brdz1: The first round of the confrontation took place on February 7, 2021.

As we can see from the chart, the six-hour session ended with Stefan winning decisively, with a $90,000 advantage after crossbooking. The next day's play continued with another victory for Stefan, who later noted that every session he'd played against Wiktor up to that point had been successful.

"Today's session turned out to be a short one. Victor went to bed. The only thing I don't understand is why I drank coffee last night. Guess I'll have to hole up in the lab and prepare something fiery for tomorrow's session."

In the third round, Stefan was back on top, confidently beating Wiktor by 4 stacks:

"GG for today. It was a tough session; my head was completely out of whack due to barely sleeping last night—I was literally clicking buttons randomly. But the beauty of playing Limitless is that even in that state, it's very difficult to lose to him."

Stefan posted a graph from Victor's perspective for the entire duration of their confrontation, clarifying that, in fact, due to the crossbook, Victor lost 20% more.

In the Western community, however, some top regs still believed in Wiktor's victory.

On February 10th, Victor himself visited Stefan's blog and, in broken Russian, suggested extending the challenge for another 20,000 hands. And even raising the stakes, if desired.

In response to Stefan's jibe, the blog brings in the heavy artillery:

On February 12, 2021, Steph posted a chart from the start of the challenge, where she confidently leads by 17 stacks.

As the match progressed, the situation for Victor worsened more and more, not to mention the fact that he had not yet managed to finish a single session in his favor.

The fifth session also went to Steph, with a huge advantage of 11 stacks.

Avr0ra: Well, what can I say? I don't wish anyone to end up in Wiktor Malinovsky's shoes. Imagine, you've been psyched up for a match, preparing. And then you're simply blown away by 28 buy-ins, with practically no chance. Taking the crossbook into account, it's more than half a million, and with sidebets, maybe even a million!

You're only 10% of the way through the game, and you're locked in a cage with a monster. It's clear Stefan was doing well, but that's the advantage of his style—when the chips are down, he plays a ton of big pots, while his opponent flounders, makes mistakes, tilts, and gets into his dad's control zone. The poor guy has no chance left.

On the plus side for Wiktor, there's a break in the match, Stefan is moving from Costa Rica to Thailand, and he has time to take a breather and try again with a clean slate.

There's still a long way to go. It's not a given that Wiktor was tilted, but when you've lost 30 buy-ins in a row, no one can continue to play their A-game. Any player's game will break down, or at least falter.

Brdz1: After a short break due to Stefan's long flight to another part of the world, the match resumed. The first session lasted 13 hours.

What Victor's fans had been waiting for so long happened on February 21st – the first winning session in his favor.

But in the very next session, Stefan took a confident revenge, almost doubling his losses from the previous session. The overall graph since the challenge began looks truly daunting – in 13,500 hands, Stefan won $384,000! One can only guess what Victor was going through during this stretch.

Stefan: "Wiktor is the worst high-stakes player ever."

Right in the middle of the next round of the match, Limitless suddenly interrupts his session against Stefan because Munez (at NL100k) has come to play against him.

Now I have to sit and wait for him to finish playing. How obsessed with money do you have to be to behave so disgustingly? Wiktor is definitely the most vile player at high stakes, and his reputation fully justifies it.

It's funny that Stefan was amazed by Victor's ability to multi-table in heads-up:

Victor is ready to play six tables of heads-up poker against three different opponents, all while drunk? There's no doubt about it – he's simply lost his mind.

Two and a half years later, in the fall of 2023, Stefan will be playing heads-up with Linus, Makeboyfin, and Buttonclicker – three of the best players in the world.

In response to the insults, Truteller appears on the blog :

Hey Stefan. There's absolutely nothing disrespectful about cutting a long match short for a session that costs five times as much, especially if the third player rarely plays. And by the way, could you tell me where Wiktor got his reputation as a nasty player? I don't know, is it just between you and your friends?
Expressing opinions about each other's technical level is one thing, but in an upswing, trying to belittle someone is a weakness, but, as the classics said, the stronger the person, the stronger their game...
Words are words, but Victor didn’t violate your agreement for the match, and you’re trying to ruin his reputation.
He can stand up for himself, no doubt about it, but he's unlikely to communicate much on the Russian forum, and I don't like seeing dirt and lies about a friend.

At the same time, Stefan announced that after the challenge against Limitless he plans to end his career and find himself in something else.

Poker is toxic by definition because it's a zero-sum game. There's too much negative emotion, which is a high price to pay for the action when money ceases to matter. I have no idea what I'll do afterward. That remains to be seen, but I've learned that it's impossible to figure it out while still playing. Your involvement in this morass only grows with time.

The confrontation resulted in something terrible. Batya decided to stop publicly reporting on the conflict.

Here's a screenshot from Twitter of one of the main heads-up stars of the first half of the 2010s – Doug Polk .

His post suggests that accurately assessing the true level of one's opponents is an incredibly difficult task, even for highly competent players.

Avr0ra: Interesting comment, Doug! In my opinion, that's... untrue—a strong word. Old Doug always liked to add fuel to the fire—I think he deliberately wrote that "Victor is the best only because he said so on the podcast."

Before the match, Limitless was considered a superb 1v1 player, possibly the best in the world. Seriously, that's what they thought back then: he beat moglimiranda, played a good distance against Buttonclicker, and Wiktor was constantly running NL100k and NL200k tables at GG and never turned anyone down. And, as you might guess, there were no one willing to play him. Only occasional regs and amateurs who wanted to play him for fun.

Overall, Limitless was rightfully considered an incredible top-tier player. What Doug says in this tweet is, you could say, a byte. Maybe a byte per match, or a byte per something else.

Brdz1: Stefan returned to the blog two weeks later and posted the results of the previous couple of sessions. This time, Victor was in the lead, narrowing the gap slightly.

A week later, Steph posted a chart of the next 5,000 hands. And one of the observers posted the interim results .

Meanwhile, Victor was desperately dragging away $10k tournaments.

On April 13, Stefan suddenly closed his blog and reopened it only a month and a half later, defending his opponent, who was called "an HU specialist known for his trash talk and passion for wine":

This guy isn't just a HU specialist. If you combine all the main NLH disciplines (MTT, cash 3-6-max, HU, and crazy high-stakes games with straddles and antes), he'll be a top-1 player, or even top-2 behind Linus. At the same time, he remains the most motivated player I know. As for trash talk, I don't recall him trash-talking anyone other than me. And in our case, it was mutual and perfectly in keeping with the intensity of the situation. In reality, Victor is a cool, positive guy.

Match Results

On June 24, the match, which lasted 50,000 hands, finally came to an end. It ended with Stefan overwhelmingly winning, taking 59 stacks from his opponent with a win rate of almost 12 bb/100.

Taking into account the crossbook, the amount on the chart must be multiplied by 2.

Stefan: I can't even believe it's over. It was the most incredible experience of my life. It felt like I was on a psychedelic trip for months. I woke up and fell asleep every day in that state. When I had no energy left to practice, I'd just lie down in bed, close my eyes, and replay hands and lines in my head, because I literally couldn't think of anything else. At certain moments, I thought I was going crazy. It wasn't the most pleasant experience, but it was definitely a very important one in my life. Many people think the victory was a sure thing, but in reality, it was incredibly difficult, and I have to admit – on average, I was dealt better than Wiktor during that stretch, especially at the very beginning. Overall, huge respect to my opponent; throughout the entire match, he didn't even give a hint that he might break. Few people understand how brutal a form of poker competition is – a head-to-head match, closed to a certain number of hands, where you have nowhere to hide if you're feeling insecure or afraid. You either fight to the end, play every hand as best you can, or you're screwed. I'm most happy not with the win, but with the fact that I was able to overcome my fears and weaknesses and show the best I can in this game. I told myself every day: if you lose, it's no big deal. What's scary is if you break down in the middle of a match; I'd have a hard time forgiving myself for that.

After the match, Stefan and Wiktor gave a joint interview, revealing some details and offering advice to other players. Unfortunately, this video has been removed from YouTube.

When asked about his future plans, Stefan answered as follows:

Of course, I'd be interested in playing with many brilliant poker minds, but another challenge is the last thing I want right now. I've had so much poker in my life over the past two years that this imbalance has begun to seriously affect my self-esteem and motivation to further develop my game. I don't know what will happen in, say, a couple of months, but for now, I just want to live a measured life.

This was perhaps the most intense confrontation in recent poker history. Stefan didn't appear on the blog for the next two years.

Much has happened in his life since then, including the infamous $3,000,000 crypto theft. After a protracted period of hardship, Wiktor became the top winner of 2023 and returned to the top of the poker world.