Last tuesday was another historical day in online high stakes poker, and another disastrous day for the mysterious Isildur1. Just a few days after our last post aboust high stakes games, Isildur1 showed signs of a triumphal recovery by winning back almost a million from Brian Townsend and a little over two millions from Ziigmund on the following day.
Nevertheless, one day after these brief victories, Isildur1 faced Brian Hastings heads-up on 6 $500/$1000 PLO tables. The result couldn't be more catastrophic for the Swede, as he lost over four million dollars to Hastings. The session lasted close to five hours, and they played 2858 hands during that period, in which Hastings managed to run $3 millions over the expected value line. Which means he hit everything he should and shouldn't on that day.
Here is Isildur1's graph for that day (thank you HighStakesDB):

By the end of the session, Isildur1 let out his frustration:
Brian Hastings: getting very tired...
Dealer: Hand #16648979788 has been canceled
Brian Hastings: i feel bad quitting tho
Brian Hastings: would be be cool w/ playing someone else?
Isildur1: just f off
Isildur1: wåfä'qqqqqqqnhjwe4nm
Isildur1: dW
Isildur1: GFE4¨ÅN,K N,KN,KN,KN,KN,KN,KN,KN,KN,KN,KN,KN,KN,K3
Isildur1: Q
Isildur1: u know how lucky u are ?
Brian Hastings: yes i know
Isildur1: i can promise this is the worst
Brian Hastings: ill give you 30 more min if you want
Isildur1: luck anyone had
Brian Hastings: but im rly tired
Isildur1: k 30 mins more
Isildur1: take my last $$
Isildur1: i dont want it
Isildur1: ::S:S
They played those 30 minutes, but it didn't make a difference. It should be noted that, even though the difference between the winnings and expected value lines was big, even if the lines were tied together, Isildur1 would still have lost at least a million. So, saying Hastings won just because of luck could be seen as an insult to him.
Brian Hastings commented about the day on his CardRunners blog. "Wow. I just had the biggest winning day in online poker history. Did this really happen? I'm still having a tough time believing it did. [...] For it to happen, one needs a combination of very large amounts of both skill and luck. [...]here I am, winning a record $4.18 million in one day (well not exactly - no I didn't have 100% of my own action, and no I am not going into any further detail about this) playing online poker," he said.
After each bad day, people discussed if that was the definite fall of Isildur1. He proved two times the question was premature by having unreal winning days following those losses. With this big loss to Hastings, people have just accepted we will probably not see him in the nosebleed games for a good time, but one will always hope he will regroup and show his aggressiveness on the highest limits once again. Isildur1's stay in the high stakes games may have been brief, but he has marked his name as one of the strongest phenoms ïn the history of online poker. |