The Online Poker High Stakes Roller Coaster

Anyone who has been following the fortunes of online poker player ISILDUR1, will know he has been on somewhat of a roller coaster ride, his latest adventures this week show how much his bankroll varies day to day and even hour to hour, but his taking on all comers and some of the best online pros/

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Isildur1 has an interesting career history, with it seems a self built bankroll -- here is an extract from Wikipedia on his career so far, I wish I could play this style of poker, only my skill limits my horizons :-)

ISILDUR1 the anonymous online player from Sweden first appeared at Full Tilt Poker on September 16, 2009, and remained largely unnoticed until November when he began playing well known professionals such as Tom Dwan, Phil Ivey, Brian Townsend, Cole South, and Patrik Antonius at stakes as high as $500/$1000.^[4] He reached a career peak on November 15 with total winnings of $5 million.^[7] By mid December, however, he was down $2 million net,^[7] including an approximately $4 million loss to Brian Hastings on December 8, when the two played heads-up $500/$1,000 Pot-Limit Omaha for five hours.With a few brief exceptions, Isildur1 did not appear on Full Tilt between his collapse in mid-December and his return in February 2010.

According Full Tilt's insider interview with Patrik Antonius, Isildur1 had a bankroll of approximately $2000 in January 2009. He built his bankroll to $1.4 million by September and began playing on Full Tilt. He first played Haseeb Qureshi, a high stakes regular, at the $100/$200 stakes. After 24 hours Isildur1 managed to win almost $500,000. He disappeared and then resurfaced a month later and played Brian Townsend, Patrik Antonius, and Cole South at the $200/$400 to $500/$1000 tables and suffered a million dollar loss. Baar, a columnist on HighStakesDB which is a website that monitors and tracks high stakes activity online, suggested that Isildur1 was overly aggressive and could cost him playing against elite competition. Isildur1, however, proved critics wrong by winning approximately $2 million back from Townsend and South during the last week of October 2009.

Isildur1 performance in No Limit Hold'em was so dominant that most players refused to play him in Hold'em or offered to play him under the condition that he plays Pot Limit Omaha as well. He then challenged Phil Ivey, currently ranked 1st for the 4th consecutive month on ESPN’s poker rankings, playing three tables heads up No-Limit Hold’em at the $500/$1000 stakes. After a week of play Isildur1 incurred a $3.2 million loss to Ivey and stated in a subsequent interview that Ivey was the toughest opponent he ever played.

Antonius’s then challenged Isildur1 to a rematch in Omaha. Isildur1 openly admitted his experience in Omaha was fairly limited but accepted regardless costing him another $3 million after playing for only one day which, at the time, was the largest one day gain and loss in the history of online poker. This record was broken half a month later when Isildur1 played Brian Hastings. The following day they played a rematch in Omaha where Isildur1 managed to win $2 million back from Antonius.

His winnings hovered at the $2 million mark until December 8, 2009 when he played Brian Hastings for five hours. With a mixture of good luck and collusion from fellow Team CardRunners hand histories, Hastings managed to win $4.2 million from Isildur1 making it the largest one day gain and loss in the history of online poker.

It was discovered afterward that collusion had occurred between Hastings, Townsend, and Cole South in which the three shared and compiled over 30,000 hands of Isildur1’s play which may have resulted in Isildur1's $4.2 million loss to Hastings. They had gained an unfair advantage which Full Tilt defines as "accessing or compiling information on other players beyond that which the user has personally observed through his or her own game play" after Townsend admitted to acquiring hands of Isildur1's play through Hastings which he spoke of during an interview with ESPN.As a result, Townsend was suspended from his red pro status for 30 days.

A number of Isildur1’s regular opponents commented on him in the media buzz surrounding his collapse. On December 11, Ilari Sahamies appeared on Finnish radio show Radio Rock Korporaatio, saying, “He’s playing 9 tables at once against Patrik [Antonius], [Phil] Ivey, and durrrr [Tom Dwan] – the guy must be missing a chromosome.”Also that day, the Full Tilt Academy released a video in which Patrik Antonius discussed Isildur1 with Phil Gordon. Antonius, who won the largest online pot ever ($1.4 million) against Isildur1, called him “extremely dangerous” because he constantly puts his opponents to difficult decisions. Antonius further opined that the mysterious Swede would return.

The rise and fall of Isildur1 was on nearly every Top Stories of 2009 list, including those of Cardplayer, PokerNews.com, PokerNewsDaily.com, and pokerlistings.com.

On December 22, 2009, PokerNews.com published an interview with Isildur1 about his loss to Brian Hastings, but Isildur1 again refused to reveal his identity.