Sick Of Losing? Put A Kork In It

June 29, 2011, Posted by Pokerfarm

Recent SCOOP winner 'le kork' has been enjoying an incredible run at the nosebleed PLO tables over the last few months. Among the many high-stakes regs he's been facing off against is PLO convert and action-junkie Viktor "Isildur1" Blom.

The two played several HU Omaha sessions over the last few days at $25/$50, and tracking sites have le kork as the big winner, scoring over $325k from the Swedish player since the beginning of the year. The games were typically aggressive, with Isildur1 playing like a blindly devoted wealth redistribution engine, fueling the rumours he may be close to going busto again (rumours of Isi being close to busto are like rumours of Mike Matusow being close to mouthing off - pervasive, and often true)

Le kork has also squared off against Finnish PLO specialist Ilarhi “Ziigmund” Sahamies, who’s lately been on an even worse run than Isildur1, and looks to be down almost $400k this year, $100k of which has gone straight to le kork. Typically for Ziggy, some trash-talk was exchanged in chat. One of the less profane sentiments Sahamies expressed was that he didn’t want to continue to play le kork because he was “lucky”. Clearly, there’s some high-level thinking going on that only a similarly advanced player would be able to understand.

Adding a little more excitement to the rail action is that fact that no-one is really sure of who le kork is. There seems to be a general consensus that he (or she, but let’s be honest, he) is a Russian player. It’s been suggested he may be 24-year-old Maksim Kolosov, who recently cashed 2nd in the WPT Vienna NLHE event and took home $340k. Le kork is confidently asserted to be Kolosov's screenname by some Russian-language sources. The timing would make sense: the $135k SCOOP win combined with the Vienna cash would provide the bankroll for le kork’s recent foray into nosebleed PLO.

It would, hopefully, not be too uncharitable to say that (with a few notable exceptions) Russian players have not always enjoyed the strongest of reputations among US and European pros. Or, to put it another way, most people think Russian high-stakes players are mega-fish. But Kolosov, along with the likes of Ivan Demidov and mysterious FTP player NEKOTYAN, is part of a new generation that can stand toe-to-toe with some of the most highly respected poker players there are. Kolosov is claimed to be the best PLO player in the world. (Admittedly, he claims he’s the best PLO player in the world. But hey, that’s one more person than would say that about most people. And as the best PLO player in the world, he must be able to speak with authority.)

From the small sample of PLO le kork has played in the nosebleeds, he can certainly claim a high degree of skill, or luck, or both. It takes a special type of player to face some of the most aggressive players in the world at such high stakes and not be intimidated. With an impressive tournament and cash-game record so far, le kork is one to watch.