But apart from regulars like “Denoking,” "SanIker” and the inevitable Viktor Blom - who made a surprising move down the stakes this week - there was also an old friend who re-appeared on the high-stakes stage this week.
Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies is back, and with a bang.
Isildur1 Moves Down
He might be living in London but his living room is the high-stakes area of online poker.
Even with almost all top pros in Vegas right now Blom is still managing to play 10,000 hands a week. Obviously, he had to move down in the limits to find sufficient action.
Hence, we found Blom playing a lot of $25/$50 PLO and $20/$40 8-Game tables last week.
Surely regulars on these levels like Doorbread, FollowTheHawk and anna164 must have felt honored because of the distinguished visitor, but they surely weren’t graced with his money.
Thus the often suffering Isildur managed to make more than a $100k profit last week, which made him look a little better in the yearly rankings, too.
Ziigmund Returns After One-Year Break
One player to used to clash frequently with Blom and players like Cole South on the nosebleed levels is Ilari Sahamies.
The infamous Finn has not been seen for much of the year at the high-stakes tables and his only appearances were very short sessions on lower levels as Ilari_FIN on PokerStars.
Last week, however, the legendary Ziigmund nickname on Full Tilt made a comeback, and some comeback it was.
The 30-year-old Finn won $220,000 over 5,000 hands and ended the week at the top of the leaderboard.
The Battle Between SanIker and Denoking Continues
The most interesting duel of last week was the one between SanIker and Denoking. Both players are recognized as NLHE heads-up specialists.
As the big players were missing those two seemed to fight for the title of “best mid-stakes HU NLHE player” last week.
For now, it's Denoking by a mile. Of the 10 biggest pots those two played over a two-day session – which turned out to be the biggest pots of the week overall – seven went to the mystery player Denoking.
In the weekly rankings,that was enough for him to take second place. SanIker, on the other hand, became the biggest loser of the week and consolidated his place in the bottom five of the 2014 rankings.
Biggest Pot of the Week
The largest pot online was generated by the aforementioned Denoking and SanIker. The limits were $300/$600 at this NLHE HU table, and after a raise by Denoking to $1500 SanIker reraised to $5k.
The flop came:
and both players checked. The turn:
SanIker checked again but this time Denoking fired $20k. The German player with a weakness for Spanish goalkeepers wouldn’t go away, though, and made the call. The river:
SanIker checked a third time and now Denoking moved all of his $231k in the middle. SanIker had only $95k left and decided to call it off. At showdown, Denoking showed for two pair and SanIker mucked his hand.
Biggest Winners of the Week
Ilari Ziigmund Sahamies: $+220,393
Denoking: $+217,455
Viktor Isildur1 Blom: $+138,804
tyme2gamb0l111: $+118,672
David Pokerbluffs Eldar: $+73,805
Biggest Losers of the Week
SanIker: $-287,507
AceHasslehoff: $-69,853
FakeMonies: $-46,501
FallAtYourFeet: $-45,790
anna164: $-41,864
Biggest Winners in 2014
Alexander PostflopAction Kostritsyn: $+1,652,066
Niklas Ragen70 Heinecker: $+1,463,133
Dan jungleman12 Cates: $+1,355,295
Cort thecortster Kibler-Melby: $+1,203,128
Patrik FinddaGrind Antonius: $+1,183,736
Biggest Losers in 2014
Gus Hansen: $-3,545,491
Chun samrostan Lei Zhou: $-2,890,245
Phil Polarizing Ivey: $-1,815,817
SanIker: $-1,581,028
Viktor Isildur1 Blom: $-1,233,965
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