The 2012 Retrospective

In our end-of-the-year retrospective we take a look at the highlights of the past year. Let us review the most important moment of each month in 2012.

January

PokerStars pro Randy 'nanonoko' Lew set a new Guinness World Record at the PCA 2012, playing 23,493 hands in 8 hours with realizing profit.

Read more on the insane record here

February

At the age of 47, Russian poker pro Nikolay Evdakov passed away on 6 February, 2012.

Read more on the sad news here

March

Viktor ‘Isildur1’ Blom and Isaac ‘philivey2694’ Haxton finally completed their SuperStar Showdown re-match, which ended with the victory of Haxton for $5,093.

Read more on the session here

April

Incredible news hit in April, according to which PokerStars was to purchase Full Tilt Poker.

Read more on the then breaking news here

May

On 27 May, the 43rd Annual World Series of Poker (WSOP) launched with Event #1 $500 Casino Employees NLHE. A total of 732 players registered, accumulating a prize pool of $329,400.

Read more on the kick-off of the 43rd WSOP here

June

One of the most significant highlights of the WSOP was undoubtedly Event #18, which brought about the 12th bracelet for Phil Hellmuth. Hellmuth started the final table 2nd in chips but gained a major edge by the heads-up of the $2,500 Seven Card Razz event.

Read more on Hellmuth’s 12th bracelet here

July

Antonio Esfandiari won the most expensive tournament ever, the WSOP #55 $1,000,000 Big One for One Drop for $18,346,673.

Read more on Esfandiari’s huge success here

August

Matt Marafioti delivered our share of poker scandal that appeared to involve the Bandidos motorcycle gang cheating a number of high stakes players out of their money with the help of hackers.

Read more on the Marafioti scandal here

September

Patrick Partouche cancelled any further Partouche Poker Tour events following a scandal that erupted when his company denied to ever have offered a €5 million guaranteed prize pool for this year’s tournament.

Read more on the memorable scandal here

October

Greg Merson emerged as champion of the 2012 World Series of Poker Main Event. Merson took home a whopping $8,531,853, as well as the single most coveted bracelet of the poker world.

Read more on Merson’s WSOP victory here

November

Following 16 months of waiting, Full Tilt Poker finally reopened for business in early November.

Read the official press release announcing the re-launch here

December

As a milestone step in the development of real money social gaming, Facebook and Zynga altered their partnership agreement, allowing Zynga to offer real money online poker directly through Facebook.

Read more on the revised agreement here