As the year winds to a close even the action on the online high-stakes poker tables has become a little more placid.
That didn’t keep Phil Ivey from banking a big profit last week, though.
Ivey even pulled off the elusive feat of finishing first and second in the weekly rankings with separate accounts but it's still not enough to turn his year around.
Two players who would prefer not to be reminded of what happened last week? German SanIker and French player Alexandre Luneau.
Ivey Turns Profit as Polarizing and RaiseOnce
First to score 1-2 for the week but still down $2m+ in 2014.
All-round poker artist Phil Ivey has recently been winning in Mixed Games and FL Omaha 08 while mostly losing in 2-7 Triple Draw and NLHE.
One of his toughest opponents in 2-7, Alexander Kostritsyn, is currently moving towards the end of an amazing year so Ivey moved over to the FL 08 tables.
Ivey dueled with the unidentified carlooo13, who covered some of Ivey’s earlier losses in the week. After a three-hour session Ivey took $253k from Carlooo’s pockets.
As RaiseOnce on PokerStars Ivey played the $1k/$2k 2-7 game against RaulGonzales, Trueteller and Jesus lebtNOT and won another $135k over 457 hands.
Ivey thus became the first player in 2014 to come both first and second in the weekly rankings. Unfortunately it’s too late for him to make a big change to his results across the year.
For the third year in a row, Phil Ivey will likely finish his online poker year with a minus.
The King Swings Again
Having lost his sponsoring with Full Tilt in August, Viktor Blom took it easy for a while on the high-stakes tables but now he’s back in full swing.
In the early days of the week Blom had a good start with $200k profit against SanIker, bbvisbadforme and Cort Kibler-Melby.
But Blom wouldn’t be Blom if he took it easy for a long time. So he went on to challenge RaiseOnce in 8-Game and won again, this time around $100k.
Still Blom wouldn’t finish in the top 5 of the week. Never one to shy away from action Blom battled in different games in the second half of the week and lost it all back again.
Biggest Pot of the Week
The king will swing.
Familiar names battled in the biggest pot this week with Swedish online titans Mikael Thuritz and Viktor Blom clashing at a Mixed Game table.
The game was PLO and the blinds were $300/$600. Thuritz in the small blind raised to $1,800 and then called Blom’s 3-bet of $5,400.
The flop fell
Both players shoved their stacks into the middle. Blom had taken the lead with a bet of $10k but soon all the chips were wagered.
Turn and river looked like this: ---
And these were the hands at showdown:
Viktor Blom:
Mikael Thuritz:
Blom goes with top pair, top kicker while Thuritz draws to a flush with middle pair. He gets an additional straight draw on the turn.
Thuritz didn’t hit any of his outs so it was the king of swings who would cash in the whole pot this time – $72k.
Biggest Winners of the Week
2014 still on track for Cates.
- Phil Polarizing Ivey (FT): $+277,852
- Phil RaiseOnce Ivey (PS), $+180,119
- Kyle KPR16 Ray:$+164,534
- Cort thecortster Kibler-Melby: $+134,260
- kardioloq: $+132,745
Biggest Losers of the Week
- SanIker: $-317,030
- Alexandre alexonmoon Luneau: $-305,940
- JesusLebtNOT: $-164,827
- Cort thecortster Kibler-Melby: $-127,613
- supernova9: $-111,327
Biggest Winners in 2014
- Alexander PostflopAction Kostritsyn: $+3,387,181
- Dan jungleman12 Cates: $+2,806,158
- Cort thecortster Kibler-Melby: $+2,631,155
- Mikael Punting-PeddlerThuritz: $+2,493,723
- Niklas Ragen70 Heinecker: $+1,773,557
Biggest Losers in 2014
- Chun samrostan Lei Zhou: $-6,659,033
- Gus Hansen: $-5,466,295
- Phil Polarizing Ivey: $-2,371,091
- Julius KagomeKagome Fleischer: $-2,197,860
- Viktor Isildur1 Blom: $-1,678,303
