Serious man-crush there...

Good read, lol'd when he said he was sad that Blom wouldnt move back to Canada with him

nailed it.

I think one of main reasons all these Scandi's are less afraid of going broke then most is that those countries have such strong social safety nets. Low population and lots of natural resources leave a lot of freebies to go around. If you go broke in America it means the homeless shelter, food bank, and daily harrassment by cops wanting to lock you in a cage for being poor. In Scandanvia it's free housing in a low crime neigborhood and even some spending money. I mean look at Norway, they gave that guy that killed like 78 people only a 12 year sentence. In America you get that for a baggie of coke.

definitely trying to split an eight ball with isildur at the bar and talk about how fun it is to 4 bet stuff 200+ blinds post with top pair and a gutshot

Great read!

wow...you totally beat me to that one! that pic was perfect...i was also thinking of the star trek double face palm!

oh...excellent read...but thats pretty much standard with galfond!

Its 21 years with the option to keep him in jail if the judge still thinks he'd be a danger to society if he gets out.

pretty standard in europe?

Good read.

Pretty amazing that Viktor plays all these high stakes games and doesn't use a HUD.

What a boss.

wow isil love hits high stakes pro

amazing blog mr Galfond

Galfond just confirming he's still a complete boss. Crushes the highest stakes and then writes about it better than anyone.

So Isildur is like 5'3 and Galfond thinks that's gigantic right? ;P

Now that's poker writing.

Great article but I disagree with this

I see this term bandied about constantly within the poker world. Success in poker has nothing to do with intelligence. There are thousands of successful poker players who are thick as pig ****. Survivorship bias dictates that those winning believe it is to do with intelligence and whilst they often have little education (not that education is the only measure/far from it), they say they have 'street/smarts or natural intelligence'. Consider this: Alan Sugar was days from going broke due to a bad deal. 30 years later a muilti-millionaire he believes he is incredibly intelligent and often refers to his 'street smarts'. The same situation faced someone who is now homeless on the streets. He probably hasn't uttered the word 'intelligent' for twenty years.

Similarly, there are thousands of intelligent people who are total failures at poker. Of course, there are no stats to back this up, but if we take generally accepted barometers of intelligence, poker players don't fit the bill. As for Isildur, intelligent is certainly not something I would use to describe him. 'It’s hard to explain what specifically I mean' because you have no idea if he is intelligent. Reason would dictate that he is the opposite for jizzing his bankroll away, being unable to quit/invest and playing three of the best players in the world all at the same time. This is not 'smart' play. And if you believe that he cares little for money; and is in it for the conquering of the game, he hasn't done this either.

I'm not even a hater. I think Isildur is a product of extreme randomness, who goes on random swings.

You may not be a hater, but you aren't very smart either. And this is coming from someone who thinks Isi is far overrated. You sir, sound like a losing player who doesn't want to admit its from lack of brain power. You're right, poker is roulette. Close your 2+2 account and move on to something more intellectual!

Nice read Phil. Except here you forgot to mention one of the best plo players around compiled a huge database of hands and analysed it together with his friends who were also extremely strong players and had played against viktor.

Then made a post about it thanking everyone publicly for helping him get an edge through team play.

Thanks for the link. That was an amazing read.

Don't argue with me, speak to Nicholas Taleb. It's difficult to take your comment seriously when you offered no argument to the contrary. I love the internet for those one liners. I don't believe I said I was smart. Although I suppose using every known measure, I'm smarter than you. I hate myself for saying that.

Exaggerations really annoy me. I never said poker is roulette. I said Isildur's journey is a product of randomness and has nothing to do with intelligence. In addition, without sponsorship as far as I'm aware Isildur is a losing player (according to tracked sites). At a certain skill level, the swings are dictated by randomness (wow there is luck in poker). If you asked me who the best poker player in the world is, I'd say it was nanonoko (sample size). This isn't revolutionary.

Many are intelligent but degans at the same time, its crazy to assume just because one cant control his gambling that one is not intelligent, so you are saying every drug addict - gambler - alcoholic is simply not intelligent.

Isildur has huge confidence in earning big $$$ easily and for this reason going busto to him would not be as big a deal as it would to others.

you just gotta love it.

Taleb got nothing on Isildurs NLHE skills, he have probably played more NLHE hu nosebleeds than anyone in the game, still fooled by randomness?

Same goes for PLO, in the small time of him being active in the PLO business, he is probably in the top5 that have played the most hands of PLO HU in the world online(50/100+, not counting random multiyear snovas now duking it out at 2/4 , 3/6) and he still got a positive winrate in bb/100 which to be fair, is the way to measure as the skilldifference or pool of players doesnt change much in between 25/50 and 200/400, essentially the same ppl looking for spots to be in a great game.

There is no question, randomness or not, that isildur is a great pokerplayer, however he lacks some other serious skills in order to be truly one of the greatest, or perhaps, the lack of these skills will perhaps put him as one of the greatest ever, depends on how things fall out?

good guy galfond imo, and i feel with him for the bromancing thing, that he actually wanted him to move with him and his friend to vancover to buddy up, clearly he thinks isi as a good source of great attitude and joy, kinda contrary to what ppl think of him when they rail him for 30+ hours playing poker, they visualize this degen crying and raging to himself whilst continuing to mash buttons endlessly.

One thing you guys can be sure of, galfond is clever enough to choose his company, he wants to be around ppl that brings him +ev in life, wether it be development, happiness or whatnot, being around losers/degens/unhappy/Thrashed ppl is not what he go for, so with that said, isildur is according to galfond, a whole other item than what most ppl think. Which we all can agree on makes him even more beastly as a human.

Galfond seems to be a good guy.