Yorky Pud

Word is spreading like wildfire that the true identity of the mystery Swedish high-stakes cash guru, “Isildur1,” is going to be revealed this weekend, putting an end to the various theories that have been put forward over the past 18 months.

Isildur1's sponsor are currently hosting the 2010 PCA at the Atlantis Casino & Resort on Atlantis Paradise Island in the Bahamas, where 55 tournaments are going to be played over the next 10 days, including a Main Event with an estimated prizepool of $20,000,000! It was at the start of the opening tournament, the Super High Roller with a buy-in of $100,000 that it was announced Isildur1's identity would be revealed at 1900 (Bahamas time) on Saturday evening!

The latest name in the hat put forward by the online poker community is Phil “The Poker Brat” Hellmuth, though this suggestion is rather tongue-in-cheek. Isildur1 is widely thought to be Viktor Blom and more substance was added to these claims when he bought in and took his seat in the $100,000 event around 90 minutes into play, though he did not sport any of Isildur1's sponsor's logos.

A total of 38 players parted company with $100,000 to take part in this landmark tournament, the second largest buy-in of all-time, narrowly missing out on the title to last year's Aussie Millions tournament with a AU$100,000 buy-in. However, 13 more people entered this particular tournament, creating a prizepool of $3,743,000 which will eventually be shared out amongst the top five finishers, with the winner taking the lion's share of $1,500,000.

Amongst those who paid the astronomical entry fee but will not see any return on their investment were 2010 World Series of Poker Main Event Champion Jonathan Duhamel, Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier, Blom, and Ashton Griffin. Of the 23 who will return to the felt at 1200 noon Bahamas time (1700UK time) it is Tobias Reinkemeier who leads the way with 896,000 chips helped massively by the fact he cracked Shaun Buchanen's aces with pocket jacks when the latter made an unlikely straight on the very last hand of the night! Reinkemeier leads Daniel Negreanu, who has 848,000 chips, Bryn Kenney on 828,000 and Nick Shulman on 705,000.

Other faces to look out for are Daniel “jungleman12” Cates on 622,000, Mike “Timex” McDonald on 269,000 and Phil “Unabomber” Laak, though he is the shortest stack by quite a margin, holding only 99,000 chips. Be sure to check in after the weekend for a recap of all the action in this massive buy-in event.