Last week, heralded online poker grinder Shaun Deeb announced that he was retiring from tournaments. In addition, it appears that his future in the online poker world may be up in the air.
On the TwoPlusTwo forums, Deeb posted, “yah Im burntout I hate them I’m done with them. I cant win live everyone was always right I cant win online I just ran good everyone was always right. I’m gunna take rest of year off hopefully and go do something else yah poker was good for a while but **** I hate what I’ve become.” The text appeared in a thread entitled “retiring from tourneys.” A 30-page discussion quickly developed on the site, with posters weighing in with varying opinions as to the cause of Deeb’s proclamation.
The quintessential grinder, Deeb was a former number one player on the PocketFives.com Online Poker Rankings and took down that site’s Monthly PLB title in March. In tournaments that are tracked for the Rankings, Deeb has not recorded a single in the money finish in the last 10 days, seemingly living up to his retirement. Many on the TwoPlusTwo forums have speculated that Deeb will simply take a temporarily leave of absence from poker, with several posters weighing in with over/under bets as to when he’ll return.
One TwoPlusTwo member, “jon_midas,” stressed the importance of balancing poker with a more traditional life: “When you run good, you play better, and when you run bad you play worse. When you play too much you play worse. Balance poker with a normal income/life IMO.” “dia” added, “do what you need to do, take off some time and don’t worry about poker…… it won’t disappear so you can still play again if you want later.” In August of last year, Deeb won a Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS) Heads-Up event for $115,000, the largest online poker cash of his career.
Deeb has also been active on the live felts, taking 26th in a $5,000 buy-in No Limit Hold’em Six-Handed event during the 2009 World Series of Poker (WSOP) for $22,000. Last month, he cashed in the PokerStars Baltic Festival High-Roller event and the European Poker Tour (EPT) Warsaw Main Event for over $50,000 combined. In August, Deeb emerged victorious from a small field in the EPT Kiev High Roller tournament for over $80,000.
Posters on TwoPlusTwo began posting pictures of Deeb from a variety of sources. Longtime poster “Jurollo” added his two cents: “Some time off is always good. You haven’t really taken an extended break, my guess is when you come back you won’t grind as hard as you were but you’ll enjoy it more. You’ll be successful in whatever you do anyway Shaun (aside from teaching English) as long as you put the same zeal into it that you did into poker. So getting some other side interests/money makers and spending some time making them profitable isn’t a bad thing.”
Deeb sits at #11 worldwide in the PocketFives.com Rankings on the strength of the sixth best Pro Poll tally. However, his PLB score, which counts for one-third of a player’s ranking, is just the 23rd largest. While many speculated that Deeb’s absence was due to his bankroll being depleted, PocketFives.com member “sqildea25” offered a different theory: “Pretty sure Shaun Deeb is not broke. I believe he’s probably focusing more on the high stakes MTT circuit with the EPT, WPT, etc. like any of us can only hope to after we make enough money online to travel the world and play poker.”
Deeb has one World Poker Tour cash to his name, an $11,000 payday for finishing 124th in the 2007 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure.
