PS Players Break World Record of Largest Poker Tournament

On the occasion of the 100 billionth hand dealt, PokerStars organised a world record breaking tournament of 225,000 players. The $1 event took place on Sunday at 19:00 CET.

On 4 December, 2011, PokerStars held the largest poker tournament ever with 200,000 players to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the poker room. The breaking of that record was due last weekend to salute the 100 billionth hand dealt at the cash game tables. The Guinness World Record Attempt tournament had a $1 buy-in and it kicked off on 16 June at 19:00 CET.

The guaranteed prize pool of the event was $300,000 with $25,000 reserved for the winner. The sums did not increase because the field cap of 225,000 players meant at least a $75,000 overlay. This is what got realised eventually: the field limit was filled and the record was broken in the first hand of the tournament.

There were 60,000 ITM finishes, reached in the very first hour and, in less than only four hours, the final table already hit. The blinds at this time were 3,000,000/6,000,000 with antes of 750,000 and it did not take long to finish the game. The final hand and the $25,000 first prize were won by Russian player ‘Mr.SlavaPro’, the final table results being as follows:

1st: Mr.SlavaPro – $25,000
2nd: johnnykara75 – $15,000
3rd: 1star09 – $10,000
4th: jpstef06 – $7,500
5th: Tormenter85 – $5,000
6th: KARI#9 – $3,500
7th: SOY PATO355 – $2,500
8th: jmmetra – $2,000
9th: Ravic77 – $1,500
10th: Evgeniy33377 – $1,000

PokerStars has been organising record tournaments since 2008. Previous attempts were as follows:

28 December, 2008: 35,000 players
19 July, 2009: 65,000 players
27 December, 2009: 149,196 players
4 December, 2011: 200,000 players