Home / Poker News March 2011 / SuperStar Showdown – Blom goes 4-1
SuperStar Showdown – Blom goes 4-1
Posted by: James Carter. - Tue, 2011-03-22 07:06
Daniel Negreanu has been itching to lock horns with
PokerStars’ newest in-house sensation, Isildur1, ever since the SuperStar Showdown kicked off, but for reasons unknown for the public, the confrontation didn’t really happen up until the other day that that is. Negreanu has himself admitted that his online skills weren’t top-notch, and that may obviously have played a role in his reluctance to commit, but he put those fears behind him and decided to go head-to-head with the player many consider the best
online poker player ever. Negreanu hadn’t really multi-tabled online before either, so his skills were seriously short on that level too. In a blog-post before the match-up however, he stated that he had worked on his multi tabling and he no longer viewed that as one of his weaknesses.
Before the Negreanu match-up, Blom’s SuperStar Showdown record was an impressive 3-1. He dropped the first round to Isaac Haxton, but then rebounded against Tony G and bested Daniel Cates and Eugene Katchalov in the last two rounds.
This round of the SuperStar Showdown was set up in a way that would break the confrontation up into 2 parts, taking place on two consecutive Sundays. The first bout of the heads-up battle lasted for only 1,439 hands. That was all it took Blom to take Negreanu’s $150k from him, ending the match-up well before the 2,500-hand limit. The way things unfolded, it is quite doubtful that Negreanu will even agree to a second round next Sunday.
On top of the skill-handicap, Negreanu was stuck having to deal with Lady Luck who was hell-bent on making his opponent look good. He failed to catch big draws and his good hands failed to hold up time after time. Whenever he seemed to catch a break – like in the last hand of the confrontation when his K,J caught a J on the J,10,7 board against Blom’s A,K - it all blew up in his face anyway (a Q on the turn gave Blom a Broadway straight).
