Last Thursday, The 2013 NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship kicked off at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. However, when it was time for the 16 players from the Spades bracket to take their seats - 1 player was missing: Viktor Blom.
Because the tournament was to be filmed for television, camera crew, tournament crew, and the other players could do nothing but wait until Viktor Blom arrived 25 minutes after scheduled time. Blom won his first match against Andrew Lichtenberger but then lost against Mike Matusow, who ended up winning the tournament for $750,000!
Barry Greenstein, was also eliminated by Matusow, talked about Viktor Blom's late appearance in a video interview last Thursday. Greenstein told the interviewer that it took a PokerStars Team Pro manager over an hour to locate him. Blom had last been seen with Tom Dawn and security had to help the manager to check their rooms/suites, because neither one of them responded. However, Blom was not found in any of the rooms so the manager came up with the bright idea to call a Swedish friend of Blom, who he knew was in Vegas. Luckily, the friend of Blom picked up the phone and informed him that Blom was sleeping in his room.
According to Greenstein, Blom and Tom Dwan had been playing high-stakes Chinese poker until 10 in the morning. In other words, that was the reason Blom was still sleeping. Greenstein also revealed that the three of them had been playing Open Faced Chinese Poker for amounts in line with the high-stakes games in Macao, China, during the 2013 NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship. However, he didn't say who won and lost big in those battles.
source: highstakesdb & pokermagazine
