Ever since PokerStars announced the start of the SuperStar Showdown, a series of heads up matches featuring Viktor “Isildur1” Blom, there have been players literally queuing up to take on the enigmatic Swede. One such player, Rui Cao, has been waiting since December to play Blom and now he has been given his chance.
Since signing as a Team PokerStars Pro, Blom has been used in a number of different marketing strategies including the aforementioned SuperStar Challenge where Blom plays an opponent heads up on four tables of either No Limit Hold’em, Pot Limit Omaha or a mixture of both for 2,500 hands with blinds of $50/$100. Both Blom and his opponent set aside $150,000 for the challenge and whoever wins all of this amount or is ahead in terms of profit after the allotted 2,500 hands has been played is deemed the winner.
So far Blom has played nine of these matches and won seven of them, his defeats coming in the very first SuperStar Showdown against Isaac Haxton where he lost $41,701 and more recently against Daniel Negreanu where he left $26,500 at the virtual felt. Despite these losses Blom finds himself $351,671 in profit and has beaten number of highly rated players such as Tony G, Eugene Katchalov, Daniel Cates, Scott Palmer and Negreanu, the latter being the only player to lose his entire $150,000 bankroll to Blom.
Sunday 19 June is the date that has been set for Blom’s next match and it will see him take on Rui Cao in the tenth edition of the SuperStar Showdown. Cao first asked Blom for a shot at the challenge in late December but nothing ever came of it, possibly because Cao is a Full Tilt Poker pro, but whatever was stalling the action has been sorted now and the ultra-aggressive Frenchman will lock horns with Blom over two tables of No Limit Hold’em and two Pot Limit Omaha.
The encounter should be thrilling to watch as both players are certainly not afraid to splash around in pots and both could quite easily lay claim to being the kings of swings! At the start of 2011, Cao had a torrid time in high-stakes cash games, first losing over $250,000 to Jared “Harrington10” Bleznick on January 3 then dropping another $350,000 to Gus Hansen in just 113 hands on Valentine’s Day of all days.
The match gets underway at 2100 Central European time and Poker Channel Europe should have a report, with key hand histories, with you once the epic encounter has been completed.
