Home / Poker News December 2010 / Isaac Haxton vs Isildur1
Isaac Haxton vs Isildur1
Posted by: Randy Williams - Thu, 2010-12-16 05:20
PokerStars may not be able to break Isildur1’s streaky habits, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t struck gold by hiring the Swede. The attention of the poker world has already been massively diverted from
Full Tilt Poker’s nosebleed stakes cash tables to PokerStars as the Swede began taking names and busting bankrolls (among them probably his own too) there. Now, he’s made the news again.
PokerStars’ much hyped SuperStars Showdown kicks off this weekend and Isildur1 will be subjected to a true test from the get-go by facing Isaac Haxton.
The SuperStars Showdown will have Isildur1 facing a whole bunch of opponents, at predetermined times. Each session will feature 2,500 hands of high stakes
NL Holdem or PLO. The winner is the one who shows a profit at the end of the session.
Those of you who see an eerie similarity to Full Tilt poker’s Durrrr Challenge are probably right. The Superstars Showdown is likely meant as a counter to Full Tilt Poker’s Tom Dwan-centered nosebleed stakes challenge series, but as any decent countermeasure, it has been tweaked and improved here and there.
Tom Dwan’s $1 million challenge had definitely generated a lot of hype and interest, before it kind of fizzled out on the altar of inconsistency. None of the two challenge series in which Dwan has engaged are anywhere near completion, nor do they appear to get there anytime soon. In contrast, PokerStars’ SuperStars Showdown will feature much shorter sessions which will take place at set times, not when the participants themselves feel like playing. That will certainly do away with the consistency issues, and the palpable outcome from one session to another is likely to keep the fire of interest burning as long as there is action.
The only question that remains now is: how will the meltdown-prone Isildur1 handle himself under so much pressure? We’ll probably see it soon enough…
