Isildur1 Wins $10 in Latest SuperStar Showdown

Isildur1 continued his SuperStar Showdown winning streak yesterday, but just barely. His latest challenge was surrounded with the usual hype and also its fair share of criticism after it was announced that he would be following his exciting bout against Eugene Katchalov with a seemingly lopsided match-up against the relatively undistinguished Attila “DodgyFish72” Gulcsik.

While an overwhelming majority predicted that the latest SuperStar Showdown was nothing more than a publicity stunt designed to hand Viktor Blom his largest margin of victory yet, things went down in a totally different way. Granted, Blom won yet again, but his profit margin was the equivalent of a single big blind. That’s right, after 2500 hands the pro that has called himself the best heads-up player in the game beat the amateur Hungarian player by just $10. In all fairness, Gulcsik earned the right to challenge Isildur1. He didn’t front the usual massive buy-in required of all of Blom’s previous pro challengers. Instead, he won his place in the hot seat by competing in a series of qualifiers.

What exactly was Gulcsik’s admission fee for going up against the infamous Isildur1? A mere $11. Not only does Gulcsik now get to say that he held his own against none other than Viktor Blom, but his mere $10 total loss also means that the Hungarian actually profited from his time at the heads-up tables. That’s because part of the promotion he won promised him a $15,000 bankroll with which to take on Isildur1. Since he left the standoff with $14,990 of the original $15k, that money is his to keep.

A lot of critics had predicted that Gulcsik would bust out well before the required 2500 hands were completed, but DodgyFish72 definitely made good use of the skills that got him into the SuperStar Showdown in the first place. While at one point he was down by more than $10,000, and while Gulcsik never held a significant lead, he nevertheless held his own against Isildur1, and that’s saying something for any player, let alone an amateur. For his part, Blom gets to pad his record a little in anticipation of him once again taking on other real pros.

Isildur1 was full of good will following the bout, though many have speculated that he may have kept things loose for the amateur’s benefit, ensuring only that he won enough to improve his preexisting SuperStar Showdown record. Of course the real question now is if the soft competition was enough to restore Isildur1’s confidence so he can rebound from last week’s tragic ring game performances and take on another pro challenger.

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