All Star Week – PokerStars Pros Annihilated by the Challengers

Running from 26th July to 1st August, PokerStars has once again organized the ’All Star Week’, during which Team PokerStars Pros play heads-up matches against the team of ’Challengers’. Members of the Challengers’ team are the winners of the Sunday majors, SCOOP, WCOOP, the yearly TLB table and a special Joker tournament. Also, some Supernova Elite players took part on the side of the Challengers.

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With five heads-up matches a day (35 altogether), each game had a $1,000 prize pool, plus $25,000, awarded to the winning team in the end. The Challengers could increase their own bankroll with the money won, while the Pros’ winnings added to the prize pool of an $11 buy-in All Star Week Supporter Game, to be held on the 8th August.

The PokerStars Pros arrived with great hopes and determination, as last year they only managed to win by one point, that being the very last heads-up game at a 17-17 standing. According to previous statements, they were hoping for a much better performance this year.

The first day, however, did not go down as expected, as the Challengers acquired a 4-1 lead. On the behalf of the Pros, Chad Brown was the only one who was able to deafeat his opponent, badblood 1 (NLHE).

The second day brought very similar results, with the Challengers now having a massive 8-2 lead.

Chad Brown

On the third day, the Pros managed to decrease their handicap by winning 3 matches out of the 5, but they were still nowhere close to victory. It also needs to be noted, that one of the Pros, Hevad Khan, did not appear at the table, so all InstantLei had to do was to raise every hand and take all the pots until Khan’s stack diminished.

Ivan Demidov, Joe Cada and Johnny Lodden, however, managed to seize victory, changing the standings to a 10-5 Challengers lead.

On Day 4, the Pros received yet another big slap on the face, with the Challengers beating them 5-0. Similarly to the day before, one of the Pros failed to appear at the table, so all caprioli had to do was to keep pressing the ’raise’ button to take Jose Barbero’s stack. The next four matches were easy wins for the Challengers, with Timmy K beating JP Kelly, MOJOEX taking on Lex Veldhuis and Noah Boeken, and 72good outscoring Marcel Luske.

One thing that everybody found interesting was that the Pros did not take the matches very seriously; some of them didn’t know anything about the game they were playing, although the game types were clearly specified beforehand.

JP Kelly, for example, was clearly nowhere close to understanding the rules of Badugi, and after some time, Timmy K bewildered him with the question “Do you know the rules at all?” to which Kelly replied that this was his first time playing Badugi.

Later on, Timmy K stumbled upon another Pro not quite clear with a game. This was Maria Mayrinck and Five Card Draw. When questioned about what she usually plays on PokerStars, Mayrinck replied "not a lot of five card draw :)".

I do not think JP Kelly won this on Badugi

At the end of the fifth day, standings were already 17-8 to the Challengers, so all the non-professionals needed was one victory on Day 6 to win the event.

The first match of Day 6 went down between Tony Hachem and Hurloon. Following lots of raise-folds and a few preflop all-ins, Hurloon managed to defeat his opponent by calling Hachem’s all-in (A 3) with A T and receiving a neutral board.

Challengers ended the day leading 21-9.

The last day did not bring any unexpected results, the Challengers continued to dominate, making the final results a massive 24-11 win and gaining the $25,000 prize.

Well, these results definitely show how experienced the serious PokerStars online players really are, and how the Pros will never be able to win with such an attitude.

Let’s hope that next year they will take it at least a bit more seriously!

Below you can find the structure of the All Star Week (with the winners’ name in Bold)

Day 1:

1. NLHE Alexandre Gomes v jimenezzzz
2. Stud André Akkari v traction1
3. NLHE Greg DeBora v caprioli
4. 2-7TD Ruben Visser v traction1
5. NLHE Chad Brown v badblood1

Day 2:

6. NLHE Chris Moneymaker v MOJOEX1
7. PLO8 Vicky Coren v 72good
8. NLHE David Williams v Hurloon
9. HORSE Greg Raymer v jimenezzzz
10. NLHE Henrique Pinho v 72good

Day 3:

11. NLHE Hevad Khan v InstantLei
12. 2-7SD Ivan Demidov v Timmy K
13. NLHE Joe Cada v Hurloon
14. PLO Joe Hachem v caprioli
15. NLHE Johnny Lodden v Brezi26

Day 4:

16. NLHE Jose Barbero v caprioli
17. Badugi JP Kelly v Timmy K
18. NLHE Lex Veldhuis v MOJOEX1
19. LHE Marcel Luske v 72good
20. NLHE Noah Boeken v MOJOEX1

Day 5:

21. NLHE Joep Van Den Bijgaart v caprioli
22. L5CD Maridu Mayrinik v Timmy K
23. NLHE Anh Van Nguyen v MOJOEX1
24. 8-Game Darus Suharto v badblood1
25. NLHE Tom McEvoy v caprioli

Day 6:

26. NLHE Tony Hachem v Hurloon
27. O8 Julian Thew v Timmy K
28. NLHE Victor Ramdin v badblood1
29. Razz Greg DeBora v Timmy K
30. NLHE Veronica Dabul v MOJOEX1

Day 7:

31. NLHE Pat Pezzin v 72good
32. PL5CD Victor Ramdin v InstantLei
33. NLHE Vanessa Selbst v papadelpoker
34. Stud8 Randy Lew v Brezi26
35. NLHE Tóth Ricsi v Brezi26