Everyone was certain that PokerStars would hit the 35,000-player mark it needed to get the latest Sunday tournament into the Guinness World Records. True enough, hitting the 35,000 player cap was so easy that a lot of poker players were left on the waitlist. The Stars’ “Guinness World Record Tourney” is now awaiting certification and is expected to be formally listed as a record in the next few weeks.

Of course, this is a poker tournament and someone had to win. The lucky poker player who outlasted 34,999 others goes by the name “stan34powa”. It took him over 10 hours to beat back thousands who forked over the $11+1 entrance fee. For his win, stan34powa takes home $30,000 in prize money.

Stan34powa wasn’t even the favorite to win the tournament going into heads up play. He had a mere 37,213,054 in chips versus his opponent, meiky777, who had a formidable lead with 67,786,946 in chips. But Stan34powa showed aggression to take over the lead and subsequently, win the tournament. Don’t feel bad for meiky777, though. For his outstanding performance (hey, coming out in 2nd place in a 35,000-player tournament is a feat in itself), he wins $20,000. Not bad for a $12 investment.

Other players who made it into the final table were rumred14 (3rd place for $15,000), Goldman007 (4th place for $10,000), Nekochan48 (5th place for $7,500), gustave44 (sixth place for $5,000), n0ideahh (7th place for $3,500), alepolice (8th place for $2,500), ONE_TIMEE (9th place for $2,000) and FuFish (10th place for $1,500)

PokerStars happily forked over enough cash for the overlay since it was a $500,000 guarantee tournament. Thanks to the online site’s generosity, 8,750 players made in into the money—a record in itself. With the Stars’ “Guinness World Record Tourney”, PokerStars defeated its old record of 20,000 players that was set during a Stars Sunday Hundred Grand tournament on July 29, 2007.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 30th, 2008 at 9:59 am and is filed under Poker Events, Poker Industry News, Poker Tournaments, PokerStars. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.