Formerly spelled PartyPoker, partypoker is an online poker room established in 2001 by PartyGaming. With its 80,000 logged-in players, it used to be the largest online card playing site until 2006. The acquisitions and mergers never damaged the popularity of the site, which still attracts many players. Users appreciate the selection of poker games offered: No Limit and Fixed Hold’em, Omaha and Omaha Hi/Lo, Seven-Card Stud and Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo. The range of the stakes from $0.01/$0.02 to $100/$200 attracts many different players — however, in 2012 partypoker eliminated its high-stakes games, leaving $10/$20 the highest stakes on offer.
The offerings of partypoker are indeed very diverse, including a broad variety of games and tournaments, with a capacity ranging from tens to thousands of players. One of their most successful projects is partypoker Millions Online; this game is taking partypoker to pole position in European poker.
Early Years
Under the moniker of Blom90, Viktor Blom played at partypoker (PartyPoker back then) using the account his elder brother Sebastian had set up for him. At the age of 15, he was already a fearless poker fighter, taking risks when he was playing $530 sit-and-go tournaments, ending up winning about $275,000! But going on to higher and higher stakes eventually depleted his bankroll, leading him to take some rather long pauses in his early poker career — and this did happen several times in his early years, as we already know…
His last comeback to PartyPoker, when he reactivated his Blom90 account and deposited $2,500 after a one-year pause, was a big success — he earned over $200,000 in about two days and $1.7 million in two weeks. After this, he was rather less successful and soon left to find a new site. But he was soon to come back to partypoker, having matured a great deal; of course, his playing styles and tournament strategies have also matured as well!
Isildur1 Missed the Final Table at Partypoker Millions Online Tournament in 2017
Now, this is what you might call a “failure.” Viktor Blom finished 10th, taking home $59,053 — a good result; however, don’t forget that Jonathan Van Fleet from the Netherlands won the title and the prize of $1,027,000 — wasn’t it the trophy itself Viktor Blom was angling for? Wasn’t this the title he was going to be winning as soon as he possibly could? That is what we are going to see in the future.
Partypoker Appearances in 2018
Viktor Blom participated in four partypoker events in 2018, which may be a sign of him paying enough attention to this gambling platform. Here is what he had achieved:
Date Event Country Place Prize
Apr 11 C$10,000 + 300 No Limit Hold’em Canada 5th C$72,500
— Millions High Roller #2
Apr 11 partypoker €10,000 + 300 No Limit Spain 68th €35,000
Hold’em — Main Event #7
Feb 14 partypoker €5,000 + 3000 No Limit Czech 1st €850,000
Hold’em — Main Event Republic
Feb 22 €2,500 + 200 No Limit Hold’em — Czech 15th €11,000
Warm-Up Republic
Viktor Blom Wins Partypoker Live Millions Germany Final in 2018
In 2018, Partypoker Million final table was the place where poker talent of Viktor Blom once again put him in the spotlight of worldwide attention. It was the €5,300 No-Limit Hold’em Main Event held in the biggest and most prestigious European poker arena — casino Rozvadov in the Czech Republic. The festival’s guaranteed prize pool was impressive €12.5 million, and the prize Viktor Blom took home was €850,000. There was 1,022 entries total, out of which number only 13 remained on the final day, and the eight of them who made it to the final table sat down in the following lineup:
Seat Player Country Chip Stack Big Blinds
1 Niko Wieland Germany 73,900,000 25
2 Pavel Plesuv Moldova 143,100,000 48
3 Viktor Blom Sweden 144,800,000 48
4 Rickie Silcock United Kingdom 93,400,000 31
5 Radoslaw Wesierski Poland 67,200,000 22
6 Joao Simao Brazil 59,200,000 20
7 Aristeidis Moschonas Greece 170,600,000 57
8 Ondrej Drozd Czech Republic 258,600,000 86
Viktor’s opponent in the final heads-up was a poker pro from Moldova, Pavel Plesuv, who performed extremely well at this tournament. He made a deal with Blom before the final duel. The deal was to split the prize pool evenly (€750,000 for each player) and to play for €100,000.
During the exhaustive 14-hours-long final play, isildur1’s partypoker performance resulted in overcoming a huge 1:9 chip imbalance and grabbing both the title and the prize. The commentators mentioned how tired Plesuv was, and how relatively fresh Blom looked — perhaps due to his stamina, as he had spent many hours training himself in his extraordinarily long online sessions.
The multiple videos of final hand Viktor Blom and Pavel Plesuv played uploaded on YouTube collected, perhaps, over one million views combined.
The pocket cards they had were:
Viktor Blom K♥6♦
Pavel Plesuv Q♦7♦
Plesuv called Blom’s raise to 35,000,000 from the button, and the flop fell K♦Q♥9♥. Forty-five million bet from Blom followed, rightfully check-called by Plesuv, and they saw the A♦ for the turn. Plesuv check-called for 105 million. And here came the most interesting part of this hand as the 5♥ came for the river and the board was complete. Plesuv cleverly and bravely showed, his poker face calm and unreadable.
Blom tanked! The video captured his restrained facial expressions as he was weighing his options and chances. He shook his head several times, obviously not buying the story his opponent was going to sell. And then Viktor Blom called. This call was widely praised as “the call of the year,” and it was probably worth it: Blom’s two pair and a weak kicker won against a weaker pair and a missed flush draw, and he took both the prize and the title!
As often happens at the final tables, the chip stacks the players might hold before the battle begins has very little in common with the final standing of winners. Here is the final standing of partypoker Millions Germany 2018 tournament:
Place Player Country Prize
1 Viktor Blom Sweden €850,000
2 Pavel Plesuv Moldova €750,000
3 Rickie Silcock United Kingdom €400,000
4 Joao Simao Brazil €280,000
5 Radoslaw Wesierski Poland €200,000
6 Ondrej Drozd Czech Republic €140,000
7 Aristeidis Moschonas Greece €100,000
8 Niko Wieland Germany €70,000
It was Viktor Blom’s second-largest win in live tournaments after the $1,254,000 prize he took home from $100,000 Super High Roller tournament at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in 2012. Perhaps we are going to see Viktor Blom more often in live tournaments: even though he may be an introvert who hates and avoids all that buzz and prefers to play online, he is doing all right at the real felt too!