Viktor Blom Beats Jake Cody in Full Tilt Showdown

The much-anticipated "Best-of-Three" showdown recently took place at Full Tilt Poker, but only one half of the original participants were available for the challenge. Viktor 'Isildur1' Blom was ready but his opponent, Gus Hansen, had to skip the September 14th showdown. All that Full Tilt offered on the absence was the following:

We regret that Hansen was unable to play, and we apologise to his fans. Unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances, Gus Hansen did not play the heads-up match against Isildur.
Luckily, Jake Cody filled in for Hansen in the Best-of-Three series, which consisted of Stud Hi/Lo, Triple Draw and No-Limit Hold'em SNG's. With Cody and Blom pitted against each other, the latter ended up winning the challenge and a $50,000 prize. Despite losing, Cody seemed in pretty good spirits after tweeting, "that would have been pretty epic, but couldn't pull it off and he won :/ snap busting the holdem didn't help haha."

No humiliation for the loser

Originally, the loser of Best-of-Three was supposed to either sing the winner's national anthem, or play 1,000 hands of $0.05/$0.10 Razz. But seeing as how Cody was such a good sport about filling in at the last minute, he's off the hook for the humiliation part of the challenge.

What did Full Tilt players get out of this?

What was great about the Best-of-Three series is that it did an excellent job of involving the players. Full Tilt members chose their side by participating in either a $10K Gus Supporters Freeroll or a $10K Viktor Supporters Freeroll. Since Viktor Blom won, those who chose the Viktor Supports Freeroll will gain entry into a special $30k freeroll. Additionally, people got to vote through social media on which games Blom and Hansen (Cody) would play.

Overall, this turned out to be a very successful promotion for Full Tilt. There was a lot of attention given to Best-of-Three on poker forums. And Joey Ingram, a PLO pro who runs a popular podcast, live-streamed this event along with commentary from Brian Hastings. All in all, we can probably expect something similar from Full Tilt in the future, given the buzz that was generated this time around.