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Isildur1 Live in WSOP-E – Brilliant Bluff Going Wrong

Posted by : Charlie River | 1 Comment

10

Feb

Categories : WSOP

Victor Blom, main contestant to being the person behind the legendary nosebleed stakes nick Isildur1, appears in a clip from the 2009 WSOP-E.

Take a look at this fantastic hand from the WSOP Europe in September 2009:

Summary of the hand

Place: Day 2 of the 2009 WSOP Europe.

Players:

Victor Blom, 19 year old Swede believed by many to be Isildur1
Hand: K2
Stack: 250,000
Ian Munns, amateur from England
Hand: A7
Stack 250,000+

PRE FLOP: Raise and re-raise
FLOP: AA3
POT: 20,000

Blom checks, Munns bets 9000. Blom reraises to 58,000. Munns reraises to 146,000. Blom reraises to 250,000. Munns calls.

Analysis

After the hand Munns is jiggering, pointing out that Blom didn’t even have a flush draw.

In my view, this only proves that Munns doesn’t understand what just happened.

Obviously Blom is not playing his hand in this spot. He’s playing his opponent. He makes the analysis that there are so many aces Munns must fold to his repeated aggression.

I mean, ask yourself if you would play an enormous pot with A7 on this board. How would you feel about calling all your money (more or less) with a puny 7 kicker?

I know I’d have a hard time staying in the hand.

I think Blom’s move is brilliant in the sense that the opponent will have to fold many of the hands that he’s likely to have. Blom is playing his opponent’s range.

But, sure, Blom made this move against the wrong opponent. I don’t know Ian Munns, but I have a feeling he’s not thinking on the fifth level or anything like that.

He has trip aces so he’s happy to play a huge pot.

Maybe he’s even read Blom as an insanely loose player. Maybe he acknowledges the possible flush draw, which makes folding a little harder. Maybe he’s doing the pot odds home work and realizes he’s put himself in a situation where he’s pot committed.

Or maybe he’s just playing his three aces for a huge pot.

Lesson

I think the lesson here is this:

Don’t make sophisticated plays against people who are not sophisticated. They won’t get it.

Comment (1)

sooyoung March 24, 2010 at 8:52 am

Actually it was a really bad bluff by blom and it’s ridiculously easy to call his shove. True, there are alot of aces that he can pressure his opponent to fold, but he is representing a hand that he CANNOT have. Remember the announcer commenting on how aggressive Victor had been throughout? Look at the line leading up until that point: Blom opened for a raise and got 3-bet by Munns, he calls and the dealer flops the cards. On the bet-raise-reraise-ship action that followed, blom is trying to take the line that he had AK or 33 and flopped a boat. Look at his line pre-flop; how believable is it that he has AK or AQ? And if he had a medium ace like A9 or AJ, he would have to take time to figure out of his opponent had an ace and how big his kicker was; he shipped immediately without even pausing, so his hand range is AK(which based on preflop action he cannot have), 33(more possible but still highly unlikely), or air, which he will have the majority of the time

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