The second of two starting days wrapped up at the European Poker Tour’s (EPT) PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Sunday night, with Alex Venovski emerging as both the chip leader of Day 1B and the overall field. It’s a close race at the top, though, as Venovski’s 193,000 chips just edges Chino Rheem’s 182,900 and Jonathan Jaffe’s 182,000.
Venovski does not have much of a live tournament history, claiming just 10 cashes over the past four-plus years. Five of those, however, were at the World Series of Poker and one was on the World Poker Tour (WPT), where placed 8th in the WPT Jacksonville Main Event just this past November. His largest score came a week before that in the $2,500 No-Limit Hold’em Championship Event at the Rock and Roll Poker Open at the Seminole Hard Rock Casino and Hotel, where he placed second for $150,000. All told, Alex Venovski has won $290,184 in his live tournament career.
Of the original 1,072 players in the field, about half – 544 – remain alive for Day 2. The prize pool amounts to over $10 million, with $2 million going to the eventual winner. 160 players will receive at least the minimum payout of $15,000, while the top 10 will all make six-figures.
Other recognizable names still in the tournament include, but are not limited to, Luca Pagano, Arnaud Mattern, Harrison Gimbel, Barry Greenstein, Yevgeniy Timoshenko, Matt Waxman, JP Kelly, Phil Collins, Marcel Luske, Dario Minieri, Bertrand Grospellier, Bill Chen, Amnon Filippi, Vanessa Selbst, Galen Hall, Carlos Mortensen, and Ivan Demidov.
In the meantime, back in a corner of the tournament room, Pokerstars pro Randy “nanonoko” Lew was sitting by himself. This wasn’t a Little Jack Horner situation – there was no plum-filled pie in his lap – no, Lew was taking aim at a new Guinness World Record for the most online hands played in two hours. There was one catch, though: he had to finish in the black. If he lost money overall, no matter how many hands he played, it was all for naught.
It came right down to the wire. With just over a quarter-hour remaining, Lew had played over 23,000 hands but was only up $8.91 (but imagine the rakeback). But that was a huge improvement from earlier, when at one point, playing 40 tables, he was down $1,200. He moved up the stakes to $5/$10 to try to get it back, which he obviously did. But staring at a profit that could disappear in one bet, Lew had to start managing his play if he wanted to hold on. He closed tables one at a time to limit his exposure to potential losses, eventually having a lone table remaining on one of his two monitors. Of course, he was dealt pocket Aces at the end of his run and had to play it. Fortunately, they held up and Lew finished with a $7.65 profit over 23,493 hands.
The PokerStars blog had the complete statistics:
23,493 total hands
2936.63 hands per hour
48.94 hands per minute
1.23 seconds per hand
22,784 FPPs earned (there’s the rakeback equivalent)
$7.65 profit
There was no previous record to be broken, so Randy Lew set the standard. He played 23,493 hands in 8 hours, pulled a profit, and is now the Guinness World Record holder. And he still has 16,200 in the PCA Main Event, so he has that going for him, too.
The PokerStars Caribbean Adventure will resume at noon local time on Monday as the remaining players from Days 1A and 1B combine for Day 2.
EPT PokerStars Caribbean Adventure – Start of Day 1B Chip Leaders
1. Alex Venovski – 193000
2. Chino Rheem – 182900
3. Jonathan Jaffe – 182000
4. Philippe Dauteuil – 170800
5. Istvan Birizdo – 165900
6. Jasper Wetemans – 153600
7. Max Leonhard – 149700
8. Yuliyan Nikolaev Kolev – 149700
9. Sean Jazayeri – 147100
10. Micah Smith – 141100
