Famous Gamblers From History & Today

Ever wondered about the lucky few who win life-changing amounts of money when gambling? You can find out their stories in our section on famous big winners. Here’s a selection of some of the people covered.

Experienced casino players will know that the house edge is impossible to overcome without the ability to count cards (and even with that ability it’s very challenging). Some gamblers refuse to accept the house advantage though, and resort to cheating. You read about some of the most famous cheats, including those listed here, in the section linked below.

Card counting is not easy, as we alluded to above. It’s possible though, and there have been many players that have managed to beat the casino at blackjack. Our section on famous card counters features some of the most successful and well-known counters, including the following.

With so much televised poker these days, and plenty of glamor to the game, this is perhaps the best of form of gambling for anyone wanting to make a name for themselves. They’ll need to be good though, as the top players are very skilled and make it to the top for good reason. We’ve covered some of the very best, past and present, in our section on famous poker players. It includes the following players and many more too.

Not many people can claim their life-long career started when they were only fifteen years old, but that’s exactly how it happened for Annette Obrestad. Having no way to transfer funds to an online poker account, Annette took advantage of freeroll tournaments in order to build up her bankroll to nearly $500,000.

Her career may have started in cyberspace, but it’s certainly not limited in that way anymore. Ever since she was old enough to start entering live tournaments, she took every opportunity she could get her hands on. She has accomplished so much in her young career from being the youngest person to win the WSOPE main event to being deemed number two on Norway’s All Time Money List, having earned nearly $4 million from live tournaments alone.

On September 18^th, 1988 Annette was born in the small fishing town of Sandes, Norway to a middle-class family. When she was quite young, her father taught her how to play a couple different versions of poker: five card draw and seven card stud. It was because of this reason that her parents weren’t overly shocked when she asked to use their credit card so that she could start playing poker over the Internet.

Annette’s mother became very concerned for her daughter. Not only was she afraid Annette would end up spending too much money, but she was worried that Annette would become addicted to gambling as well. Those concerns on top of her mother’s realization that it was illegal for her daughter to play online at such a young age, led her to refuse her daughter’s request.

Annette wanted to respect her mother’s wishes, but she still was passionate about playing poker. So, she continued to play online for free, oftentimes competing in free roll tournaments. It was possible to win a little cash here and there from these tournaments, so she was hoping to build up her bankroll using this method, and that’s exactly what she was able to do. Her username then and her username now remain the same: Annette_15. She chose this username because it was simple, she wanted her name to be known, and because she was only fifteen when her online poker career started.

It took Annette a few years to get on her feet, but once the money started rolling in, she felt like it would never stop. Of course, the kicker was she had to wait until she was eighteen to actually withdraw any of the money from her account. For a while, she watched her bankroll grow and grow, and never told anyone how much she was making. In just a matter of three years, Annette managed to win almost half a million dollars across three of the major online poker sites in the business at that time: Full Tilt Poker, Poker Stars, and UltimateBet.

When she turned eighteen, she dropped out of high school and was ready to start playing poker professionally. Early on, she went down in history as the only poker player who was able to win a $4, 180 contestant sit and go tournament while only peaking at her cards once the entire time. How was she able to do this? She covered the part of her computer screen that displayed the hole cards with a post-it note, and used her skills to read the other players as best she could.

The first live tournament she qualified for was UltimateBet’s Aruba Poker Classic where she earned 37^th place and brought home over $12,000. She was discouraged by her early live tournament performances, but we realize now she just needed time to adjust to the differences in competing online versus competing in real life. In an interview with Bluff Magazine, Annette gave advice to those who were in that same transition period.

In September 2007, Annette entered the World Series of Poker Europe main event. Not many people had even heard of her before this event, but afterward, her name would never be forgotten. After the first day of this three-day long competition, Annette was already a lead chip holder. This was quite an accomplishment, considering she was up against top performers like Patrik Antonius, Annie Duke, and Gus Hansen.

The last day of the competition, it came down to Annette and a man named John Tabatabai. Although the final round was intense, it was Annette that would land the 1st place finish, bringing home over $2 million dollars. She managed to set two records that day! Not only was she the first female to win the WSOPE, but she was also the youngest person in the event’s history to win as well. In fact, it was only a few days before her nineteenth birthday when she won.

A little over a month later she found herself at the European Poker Tour main event that took place in Dublin, Ireland. Annette performed very well in this competition, placing second right behind Reuben Peters. Second place came with a $400,000 cash prize and the bittersweet taste of defeat. She has competed in the EPT several times since then, but has yet to come as close to winning as she did that first time.

Annette wasn’t allowed to start competing in the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas until her twenty-first birthday. By the time she was of age, people knew who she was and had high expectations of how she would perform. Although she did cash out at four different events that first year, her fans were disappointed that she had failed to win a WSOP gold bracelet. Winning a bracelet won’t be easy, but Annette is far from ready to give up on her dream of bringing one home.

If the name Viktor Blom doesn’t ring a bell, then maybe you would know him better by his screen name: Isildur1. Viktor spent years playing poker at a variety of different online poker sites, competing against some of the top players in the world without them knowing who he was. Everything changed when he signed a one-year contract with PokerStars; not only did everyone now know who he was, but he started competing in live tournaments for the first time as well. He has made millions of dollars over the course of his career, and we don’t see that changing anytime soon.

Viktor was born on September 26^th, 1990 in Gothenburg, Sweden. He was the youngest of four children, having two older sisters and an older brother named Sebastian. Viktor and Sebastian started playing poker together when he was only fourteen years old; their game of choice was No Limit Texas Hold’em. Viktor longed for more competition, so he taught his friends how to play. Soon, his love of poker spread throughout his school; many of his classmates were eager to play on school grounds in order to get their hands on a little extra cash.

One lunch period, in particular, twenty-five students gathered around to play. Although some of the students were older than Viktor, he was easily able to defeat all of them before the period ended. Viktor decided to deposit some of the money he had won over the past year into an online poker site. Since he was only fifteen years old at the time, Sebastian had to help him open the account. He first played under the screen name, Blom90.

Viktor’s career would have a series of high and low moments. In the beginning, he only played low limit games for up to fifteen hours a day. Over time he moved on to $500 sit-n-go tournaments that allowed him to build his bankroll up to $275,000. After making too many risky moves, however, he would find himself completely broke. He was greatly discouraged, but he still managed to press on and build his bankroll back up to $50,000, which he would again proceed to lose. Viktor decided that it would be in his best interest to take a break from playing poker for a while so that he could re-evaluate his strategies and see what areas he needed to improve.

When asked in an interview with Bluff Magazine, Viktor admits that he was concerned with how he dealt with bankroll management

When Viktor came back, he was more determined than ever to make a living from playing poker. He moved from Sweden to London, to avoid the high Swedish taxes that were associated with gambling. He opened new accounts at all the major online poker sites, now playing exclusively under the username Isildur1. He later admits that his username is based off of a character in J.R.R. Tolkien’s book, Lord of the Rings.

Viktor wasn’t there to mess around this time but instead started taking on some of the best players in the world including Patrik Antonius, Tom Dwan, Phil Ivey, and Brian Townsend to name a few. His encounter with Tom Dwan was especially eventful as he went up against him for a series of $500/$1000 No Limit Hold’em games at the Full Tilt Poker website which resulted in Viktor being able to add $5 million to his bankroll. He also was able to win $500,000 after defeating Isaac Haxton in a $200/$400 No Limit Hold’em heads up challenge.

Viktor wasn’t always on the winning side of things, however, as he once lost over $4 million dollars in less than five hours after playing against Brian Hastings. Shortly after his defeat, it was released that Brian had acquired private hand history information that illegitimately gave him an upper hand against Viktor. The person who gave him this information, Brian Townsend, was given a one-month suspension from his Red Pro status as punishment for breaching his contract.

Ever since the report came out that Isildur1 had been cheated, players were more eager than ever to find out who this player was. Some people thought it was Robert Flink, while others thought it may be the very talented Phil Hellmuth. Clearly, these people were wrong. Viktor wasn’t planning on revealing his identity until PokerStars called him up and offered him a spot on their team.

On January 8^th, 2011, PokerStars announced that they would be adding a new member to their team: Viktor Blom, also known as Isildur1. Viktor was certainly not the person everyone was expecting him to be. For someone that plays over-aggressively, they didn’t think he would look so harmless. He was skinny, he had no facial hair, and his un-washed blonde hair swooped gently over his eyes. On top of that, he was hardly twenty-one at the time of the big reveal.

Despite his looks, he was still able to earn the respect of his fellow teammates; they enjoyed playing against him and watching his aggressive moves in person. His partnership with Team PokerStars only lasted about a year, but he’s thankful for the time he got to spend with them. It forced him to come out from behind his computer screen and enter some live tournament events that he otherwise wouldn’t have tried.

Coming to the realization that everyone would know who he was at these tournaments was certainly an adjustment for him. He wasn’t in this for the fame, and talking to strangers was never something he was very fond of. Still, he continues to compete in tournaments across Europe and the United States even to this day.

Viktor Blom has landed three World Series of Poker cash finishes over the course of his career. He took 16^th place at the 2010 World Series of Poker Championship event, 151^st place in the 2012 No Limit Hold’em Six-Hand event, and 14^th place in the 2012 Poker Players Championship. Viktor Blom has also dedicated a good amount of his time to compete at the European Poker Tour. He placed second in two No Limit Texas Hold’em events and is hoping to acquire an EPT title soon.

Although his performances at the WSOP and the European Poker Tour were decent, his greatest live tournament accomplishment occurred at PokerStars’ 2012 Caribbean Adventure that took place in Paradise Island that year. During this competition, he was able to play face to face against other well-known professionals such as Jonathan Duhamel and Daniel Negreanu. Despite the odds being against him, Viktor managed to walk away from the competition with the 1st place prize of over $1.25 million.