HighstakesDB.com have been featuring a story about Viktor Blom titled “The Making of Isildur1″.
The first 3 chapters of the story are based directly on interviews with Viktor Blom. In the fourth chapter, the story continues but this time based on secondhand stories, along with rumors and gossip from svenskaspelare.com.
The fourth chapter of “The Making of Isildur1″ contains serious allegations against Peter “Zupp” Jensen.
The essence of the accusations is that “Zupp” and Swedish poker player Robert “Gulkines” Flink cheated Isildur1 out of $800,000. They allegedly did so through so-called “multi-accounting”, as “Zupp” allowed “Gulkines” to use his account.
You can read the allegations
here.
ZUPP’S VERSION OF THE STORY
Peter “Zupp” Jepsen has now given PNN.dk his side of the story, and what Zupp has told suggests that the legend of Isildur1 should be rewritten. The “official” story is that Zupp and Gulkines’ multiaccounting left Isildur1 nearly broke. The story goes that Blom had to start from scratch after the multiaccounting scandal and build his bankroll back up. Zupp tells a completely different story – but we will return to this.
First, Zupp responds to allegations of multiaccounting:
“I have always officially denied that I let Gulkines use my account, but now it is time for me to tell the truth. Yes, I let Gulkines use my account. And yes, we won about $800,000 from Blom,” says Zupp.
He further explains:
“Gulkines had previously played Blom on iPoker and lost his entire iPoker roll to Viktor. Gulkines believed that he could beat Viktor, but wasn’t able to deposit enough money into his own account to be adequately bankrolled to face him. He contacted me to ask if I had any money on iPoker. I had about $150,000 on there at the time, and because I was very confident in Gulkines’ abilities as a player, I gave him access my account without giving it much thought. I had a percentage of Gulkines’ action, but that was the extent of my involvement.”
I HAVE NEVER PLAYED BLOM
In the fourth chapter of The Making of Isildur1, it is suggested that Blom at some point realizes that he had actually won $250,000 when playing against Zupp, but lost $800,000 playing against Gulkines. Zupp states that this is false.
“I never played against Blom. It was only Gulkines playing,” says Zupp.
Zupp confirms that Gulkines won about $800,000 from Blom.
“The match was swingy, but eventually he ended up winning about $800,000 and Viktor was broke. So then there was $950,000 in my account, and obviously we were every excited,” says Zupp. He then responds to a sentence in the fourth chapter of The Making of Isildur1 that doesn’t put him in the best light.
The sentence reads:
“It bothered Viktor a lot that Zupp talked to newspapers and on poker forums about how big of a fish Blom was.”
Zupp responds:
“It was a very prominent win – many people noticed it, and wanted to talk to me about it. I couldn’t simply say that it wasn’t me, so I went along with it – stupid, but I did. However, I remember that my jaw dropped when I woke up the next day and read the news. I had been very misinterpreted, and everything was exaggerated – I guess that’s how they make headlines. I remember that I called the reporters asking them to remove several passages.”
REWRITING THE LEGEND OF ISILDUR1
Let us return to the rewriting of the story of Isildur1. According to Zupp, Blom never had to “start over”. Quite the opposite.
“I was contacted by Bet365. They came to me and claimed that they had evidence that I had let someone else use my account against Blom. I admitted it, and explained to them that my Swedish friend had lost his own bankroll and was desparate to continue playing. I don’t think what happened next, has ever happened before or since.”
Zupp continues: “Bet365 returned to me with a decision. They decided that I had to pay Blom the full amount: $800,000. In the meantime Gulkines had continued playing on the account and unfortunately lost $300,000. This meant that there was now only $650,000 in the account instead of $950,000 as had been the case right after the match vs Blom. Bet365 insisted that I deposited $150,000 so that they could transfer the full figure to Blom. If I did not agree, they said they would drag me to court and make sure that I never played online poker again… anywhere!”
Zupp then delivers his conclusion: “The truth is that Blom got EVERY penny back. It must have been crazy to wake up one morning and realize that all the money you’d lost had come straight back into you pocket. It’s something people can only dream of, after a big loss. It must have been like winning the lottery! When you think about it, Viktor was basicly on a freeroll while Gulkines and I ended up losing $300,000. It’s a little ****ed up. Listen, Blom played against everyone – EVERYONE! He multitabled against 2, 3, sometimes 4 different people. Anyone, any time, 6-7-8 tables. He knew next to nothing about who I was or how I played. We had never played before. He lost the match vs Gulkines, and I would describe it as “fair and square”. It had nothing to do with hand histories and a past dynamic versus me – no way. I am convinced that Viktor knew that he could be playing against anybody, but he was completely and utterly indifferent to the fact. I can honestly say that there was no intention to cheat in the lending of my account to Gulkines – it was only a matter of getting money on the site quickly. It was commonplace at the time that you could ask in the chat who you were playing against, and receive an answer. Borrowing accounts were THAT common.”
HIGH STAKES PLAYERS SHARED ACCOUNTS
Zupp believes that he has a plausible explanation as to why Blom has never commented on the multi-accounting scandal.
“I don’t know if he’s embarassed about it – no, that’s not the right word – but I can guarantee that he almost couldn’t believe what he heard, when he learned that the money would be repaid,” says Zupp, who almost couldn’t bear to read about the scandal again.
“It pisses me off that I have to read this f***ing bull**** about him getting cheated and how he had to rebuild his bankroll again. He got every penny back, which he probably shouldn’t have had. It’s pretty sick. I was on tilt about this for four years, and I’m still a little tilted over it. Gulkines, who was a world class player, was put off his game for several years because of this. I would assume it still tilts him a lot,” says Zupp, who has one last point:
“Today I wouldn’t lend my account to anybody, not just because of what happened, but also because online poker is completely different today. Back then most – if not all – high stakes players multi-accounted. The swings were huge, and pretty much no one had enough money on one site to withstand the variance. Also, it was very difficult to move large sums of money due to ridiculously low deposit limits and problems with eWallets. The Americans were blessed with FTP and Stars who allowed very large transfers between accounts, but in Europe we didn’t have a lot of options on Prima, iPoker, Party etc., because of regulations.”
Zupp elaborates: “It was generally known that several prominent high stakes players shared accounts or even had shared bankrolls. I never considered it cheating, and I know that many pros agreed, but it’s not something people talk publicly about. The problem is that there’s a very thin line between right and wrong, and it’s very difficult to distinguish between the two, especially in the media. People hear about “multi-accounting” and right away they think of people playing multiple accounts at the same cash game table, or two people sharing live information over Skype. There have also been many examples of people using multiple VPN connections to play the same tournament with 10 different accounts. There’s a huge difference between what Gulkines and I did, versus the case of four professional players, who keep several million hands in a shared database and take turns playing against the same guy, being able to analytically decipher everything he does. However, it’s very difficult to distinguish between all these different examples if you just simply call it all ‘multi-accounting’.”
“There is no doubt in my mind that Gulkines did not gain any unfair advantage by playing on my account. If anything, he was probably at a marginal disadvantage against Blom, who later turned out to be the world’s best NLHE player. And for those who think it was cheating, all I can really say is that I certainly paid the price for my actions”, says Zupp.
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