Breaking a record that was only set a week ago, online poker player “ChicagoJoey” crushed the mark for most hands played during a 24-hour period and made some nice cash on the side to boot.
Back on November 25th, Russian online player “innerpsy” set the record for most hands played in a 24-hour period at a little over 40,000. This spurred other online grinders to try to top his record. It wasn’t until TwoPlusTwo poster ChicagoJoey, who plays online under the moniker “joeingram1,” announced his challenge on November 29th that the significance of the record became apparent.
In a thread, ChicagoJoey laid out the rules for his challenge and booked action on whether he could complete 50,000 hands within a 24-hour period. In addition to playing the required number of hands, ChicagoJoey also stated that he would have to show a profit for the session or he would lose all of his side bets. Only the hands ChicagoJoey played at the No Limit Hold’em or Pot Limit Hold’em stakes of $0.10/$0.25 would be counted towards the record and to ensure that it was him that was playing the entire time, the session was broadcast over the internet through a web cam.
Side betting action was laid at 2.5:1 that ChicagoJoey could actually pull off the trick and many posters on TwoPlusTwo took him up on it. By the time the wagering had ended, 26 people had bet against ChicagoJoey, with stakes ranging from $100 to $1,000. All totaled, ChicagoJoey was risking $13,180 to win $32,950 – in addition to the stakes at the tables – if he could pull off the feat.
Players debated on the forum whether ChicagoJoey could actually complete the task at hand and even put up side bets of their own outside of the action that ChicagoJoey was booking. The current record holder at that time, innerpsy, even showed up to comment prior to the action, saying to ChicagoJoey, “Beat: Playing this amount of tables of nl25 with 10ptbb/100 you still have lower $/hour than me runnin breakeven. Just joking, gl dude… I might be one of the few people who really realize how difficult it would be.”
On Monday at slightly past Noon, ChicagoJoey began the 24-hour grind and in the early going, the situation wasn’t looking good. After approximately 1,200 hands, ChicagoJoey was in the red, but he slowly began to grind his way back towards even. After approximately 5,000 hands, ChicagoJoey was able to get back into the black and never looked back from that point. After 12 hours of action, he was at just under 30,000 hands and showing a $375 profit from his play.
The railbirds at PokerStars, where all of the action took place and who verified all action, came to realize that ChicagoJoey was going to put innerpsy’s record out the door less than a week after it was set. The magic moment came after 20 hours and two minutes, when ChicagoJoey cracked the 50,000 hand mark and was ahead $850.35, sealing the new world record and roughly $33,000 in side action. ChicagoJoey continued on for another 470 hands before ending his marathon session up slightly over $800 over a 21-hour period.
ChicagoJoey, who is known in the online world as a strong online grinder, has now entered into a rare pantheon along with innerpsy and another online poker legend, Chiren. There is already a potential challenge from ChicagoJoey to battle against Chiren, who once booked one million hands in a month. As of this time, there has been no reply.
Many poker players haven’t played 50,000 hands in their lives, let alone in one day. Poker News Daily would like to extend congratulations to ChicagoJoey for setting the new 24-hour record, showing a profit from the session and his side bets and making the record one that will be difficult to eclipse.
