Isildur1 vs. Haxton SuperStar Showdown Aborted

Due to the failure of Isaac ‘philivey2694’ Haxton’s internet connection, this Sunday’s SuperStar Showdown session was suspended. Viktor ‘Isildur1’ Blom is currently $99,886 ahead.

Isaac 'philivey2694' Haxton

Following a 36 weeks long break, the PokerStars SuperStar Showdown made its return yesterday, on 11 March with Viktor ‘Isildur1’ Blom facing Isaac ‘philivey2694’ Haxton in a rematch, given that it was only him who could defeat the Swede in the series. The 2,500 hands match was to be played on 4 $100/$200 NLHE tables with a $300,000 challenge bankroll per player.

The first major pot only took 3 minutes to come around: after preflop raises the flop came 7 6 3 , giving ‘Isildur1’ an open-ended straight draw with his 5 8 . Haxton check-called $1,000 and checked again on the 9 turn. Blom, now with a completed straight, opened to $2,800, Haxton called. The river came J , Haxton check-called again ($7,600) and mucked his hand on Blom’s show, who in turn got the $24,000 pot.

Soon after, they played it down to the first all-in as well: they shoved on a 9 8 7 board. Haxton held K K and ‘Isildur1’ showed J T for a straight, and the rest of the streets did not help ‘philivey2694’ out. By the 351st hand, Blom was $45,732 ahead, although a bit later Haxton also took a huge pot of $40,840 with two pairs against the Swede’s top pair.

The biggest pot went to ‘Isildur1’, however; the PokerStars pro got pocket jacks with which he opened to $600 and Haxton called. On the Q J T flop Haxton checked then called Blom’s $1,000 bet. On the T turn, he took the initiative with a $2,400 bet which ‘Isildur1’ called. Haxton bet $5,280 on the 9 river, Blom raised to $23,600 and Haxton called then mucked his hand, giving the $55,200 pot to the Swede for a $71,376 total profit at the point.

‘Isildur1’ turned that into $94,954 by the 553rd hand, but then Haxton’s internet connection unexpectedly crushed. A 5 minutes pause was inserted that became 30 minutes by the time Haxton was able to reconnect. After 3 minutes of play, another half an hour was spent with him trying to reestablish his connection for an additional 15 minutes. Following the third disconnection, the players decided to suspend the session.

‘Philivey2694’ apologized via the 2p2 forum, saying that a huge storm two days earlier disabled his internet for 2 hours in his new home at Malta and, even though the storm was long gone, his connection remained unstable. The match is expected to continue around the middle of this week, but no exact date has been decided yet. Blom’s current edge is $99,886 after 692 hands.

Meanwhile, Blom’s next challenger has been announced: English NLHE specialist Andrew ‘Kanu7’ Millar takes his shot at him on 18 March.