How many truly natural-born poker players are there? Stu Ungar was said to be one — a player who could pick up any game and play it at an extraordinarily high level.
Viktor Blom is another. He burst onto the high-stakes online scene in 2009 and laid waste to the world before coming unstuck in some of the biggest games ever played. If you haven't read that story yet, you should.
When he was unmasked, he started playing live. His second cash was $1,254,400 for winning the 2012 PCA Super High Roller. 31 of his first 32 cashes were in no-limit hold’em. The one exception was when he placed 14th in the $50K Poker Players Championship in 2012.
Daniel Negreanu said he gave Blom a crash course in the games ahead of the tournament as he didn’t know how to play them. He tweeted at the time, “A week ago Viktor Blom didn’t know how many cards you get in razz, and now he is among the chip leaders in the $50K.”
Blom & Negreanu meet again
Blom kept himself to no-limit hold'em until 2020, when he discovered PLO. And then he moved into mixed games. And earlier in this series, he finished fourth in the $10K Limit Omaha 8 Championship. Negreanu was second.
The two met again on the final table of the $10K Limit Hold’em Championship today. Negreanu was short, and Blom was the dominant chip leader and had been for most of Day 2.
Negreanu went out early. He chronicled his frustration at the way his cards were going in his latest vlog, and that continued today.
First he ran into Anthony Zinno’s kings and was then eliminated in eighth when David Lieberman went runner-runner to make a flush.
It was another close call for Negreanu in his quest for an eighth bracelet. If he carries on his summer like this, he's surely going to convert one.
Best player without a bracelet?
When the final four took an extended break in preparation to go on the livestream, Blom was still the dominant chip leader.
This was his 28th WSOP cash. Only three players stood between him and his first WSOP bracelet — Ian Johns (not a household name but a three-time bracelet winner and limit specialist), Zinno (a five-time bracelet winner), and Pedro Neves (winner of the WSOP Monster Stack last year).
Is Blom the best player without a bracelet? There are a few players in that club, but Blom is probably the best of them in terms of raw talent. And there would be a delicious irony if one of the world’s biggest no-limit blasters won his first in a limit event.
It wouldn’t be easy, but it helps when you make your hands.
In a raised pot, the dealer put down a flop of 
.
That got the attention of both players. With 
, Johns had flopped the straight. Blom had 
and paired his ace with the nut flush draw.
Blom three-bet the flop and Johns called. Blom bet the 
and called the raise from Johns, and then picked up the nut flush with the 
river. He check-raised Johns and got the call, taking him to 2.85 million with Johns on 1.3 million.
All change as three monsters collide
Then three big hands collided, and Zinno took the chip lead. Betting was capped preflop with Blom five-betting jacks and Zinno and Neves calling with and 
respectively. Blom bet the 
flop and Zinno raised. Neves folded, Blom called and the 
dropped on the turn. Advantage Zinno.
Zinno climbed to 2.7 million, while Blom dropped to 2 million. Neves was bumped back to 460K, and he was the first player eliminated shortly after.
And Zinno carried on getting the run of the cards. It saw him build out a big stack of 3.6 million, with Johns on 2 million and Blom dropping back to 1.5 million.
There was still so much play in this one, though. The players took turns with the chip lead, with first Blom and then Johns taking up the mantle. And Johns started showing his limit chops, with great instincts and discipline.
Zinno was short and had to make a stand. The problem is he was getting dealt terrible cards and couldn’t find a spot. Eventually, down to just 165K, he got his chips in with 
and was at least live against Johns’ 
.
The 
flop kept him on life support. And the 
saw him drag the pot with a straight. It was only a temporary stay of execution, though, and he went out a few hands later when his came up second to Johns’ 
.
Blom vs. Johns for the gold
Johns had the lead heads-up: 4.4 million to 2.7 million, and had more experience in limit. He’d converted four of his five heads-up clashes. And he made it five from six in fairly short order, grinding Blom down with a combination of good cards and flawless play — death by a thousand cuts.
For Blom, the search for his first bracelet goes on, but it surely won’t be long. For Johns, this was “validation,” and for anyone watching, it was a masterclass in limit hold'em.
Talking to PokerOrg afterwards, he said, "I won one [bracelet] in 2006, two in 2016, and now one in 2025. It’s been quite a journey across 19 years. I play maybe 8-15 events every year, and it feels amazing.
“If I’m being honest, I think a lot about my status in the game and how I’ve performed over the years, and something like this cements things. That I know how to do it and I can come in here and execute. It’s validating.”
Johns had nothing but praise for his heads-up opponent.
“He [Blom] is brilliant. He has a long-standing reputation of being one of the sharpest poker minds in the world. He was really unlucky when we were heads-up, when I kept getting the best hand over and over. There wasn’t really a lot he could do.
“In the lead-up to heads-up, he was a terror. He’s so hard to play against. You just don’t know what he’s thinking, and it makes you uncomfortable all the time because you know that he’s capable of anything, but you also know he’s harnessed that and is very smart about how he deploys it. He’s incredible.”
$10K Limit Hold'em Championship results
| Place | Player | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ian Johns | $282,455 |
| 2 | Viktor Blom | $188,295 |
| 3 | Anthony Zinno | $130,447 |
| 4 | Pedro Neves | $92,774 |
| 5 | Ryan Bambrick | $67,783 |
| 6 | Max Hoffman | $50,915 |
| 7 | David Lieberman | $39,349 |
| 8 | Daniel Negreanu | $31,316 |
| 9 | Scott Bohlman | $25,687 |
