All eyes were on the third edition of the SuperStars Showdown since it would serve as the tie-breaker for Blom’s 1 win: 1 loss record. The result would either justify Isildur1’s monopoly of the show or totally bust it. Lucky for Isildur1, he managed to pull it off this time. They played for a grueling four hours, each one trying his best to outdo the other. But in the end, Isildur1 managed to walk away with a $51,196 profit… and, more importantly, his dignity intact.

Cates vs. Blom

When the match was announced, everybody had high expectations. Viktor “Isildur1” Blom was the anonymous sensation just recently unmasked, and Dan “Jungleman12” Cates was the biggest earner of 2010. Both of them tangoed against Tom Dwan and came out victorious. Both of them are experts at multi-tabling and both of them are extremely aggressive. Indeed, it was a pretty vicious match. Early on in the game, both players decided to bare their teeth at each other and simply go crazy with the bets and raises. At first, Isildur1 was in complete control, taking down a $10,000 pot and a $20,000 one subsequently.

Seeing his opponent gathering some steam, Cates decided to up the ante as well, nabbing the lead when his Pocket Aces clashed with Blom’s pocket 8’s, to which Blom put a lot of stock into. But Blom fought back and soon he had the lead again. Then Cates, then Blom – it was a regular game of pass the ball, but it was chaotic in such a fashion that nobody knew had any inkling about who would win. It could have been either one of them at the rate they were going.

The Conclusion

But of course, the session had to end and it was Isildur1 who got the profit. He ended up with a $51,196 profit over Cates. What was interesting, though, was that both players were actually pretty gracious about the whole game unlike in the previous incarnations of the challenge. No sourgraping and hard feelings where Cates and Blom are involved. They even finished up their game with a hearty ‘gg’ from both sides. Poker-wise, it was pretty interesting to watch Cates and Blom tangle. Drama-wise, not so. Still, with Negreanu sniffing around and asking about the game’s format right after the match, it might be possible that we might see a huge showdown next time.