Viktor Blom Misses WSOP And Takes To Twitch Instead

Swedish high-stakes pro Viktor Blom, 24, has made no secret of his aversion to playing in the WSOP, and last year he skipped the popular tournament series all together, stating that he found Nevada’s climate uncomfortable. As he explained at the time:
“I actually didn’t go to the WSOP this year because I prefer being in Sweden rather than Las Vegas during the summer. On top of that the World Cup has taken up a lot of my time and helped fill the gaps when there’s been a lack of cash game action.”
This year the 2015 WSOP got underway on May 27th, and marking the beginning of the competition Viktor Blom kicked-off his own series of summer entertainments by hosting a 10 hour live poker stream using Unibet’s Twitch.TV channel. Blom played No Limit Holdem and Pot Limit Omaha cash games at stakes ranging from $50 to $400, whilst “answering questions during play as well as giving his thoughts on the game” according to a Unibet statement.
By all accounts, the Twitch stream was a huge success, too, as the Swedish pro is one of the most exciting online players to watch, with his trademark hyper-aggressive style having proved a popular draw for rail birds in the past. Over the period of a few days in 2009, for instance, thousands of poker fans turned out to watch Viktor “Isildur1” Blom relieve Tom “durrrr” Dwan of $5.2 million of his bankroll, just as they did to see Isildur1 drop $4.2 million to Cole South over just four hours of play.
Since then, the cash pro has been employed by first PokerStars and then Full Tilt Poker, although his volatile style may not sit well with sponsors trying to advocate a responsible gaming approach to poker. Both brilliant and flawed, Viktor Blom is currently showing a -$4,991,617 loss on Full Tilt since 2009, according to HSDB, having dropped a further -$1,618,816 in 2015. Needless to say, anyone tuning in to watch Blom on May 27th should be prepared for a rocky, if not highly entertaining, ride.