On Wednesday, September 22nd, PokerStars dealt their 50 Billionth hand. Twitter and Facebook were advertising constantly as the moment was building up to this milestone.
After the third to last milestone, the 49,998,000,000th hand, the PokerStars cash tables filled up exponentially. There was barely a seat available as all players were trying to sit on as many tables as possible to increase their odds in being dealt in the 50 Billionth hand. Players were seen in the chat box saying things like “I’ve been playing 12 hours straight for this” and “I’ve player over 10,000 hands today”. With a $50.000 cash prize just to win one single hand players were doing anything they could to be a part of it.
When the hand took place the PokerStars lobby showed over 220,000 people logged in. This number soon dropped to 160,000 within minutes of the hand being dealt. Players in over 24 tables simply gave up their sessions.
10:35am ET, the 6max No Limit Hold’em table with blinds of .02/.05 was announced as the table to deal this hand. Historically, when a table has been selected their wait list fast grows to its maximum of 128 players trying to get on. When table “Ornamenta” was announced as being the table, the wait list went from 0 to 128 in the blink of an eye, as people believed they may somehow get lucky and grab their seat. But it wasn’t to be.
PokerStars Pros and table hosts dropped by the table and sent their good wishes and congratulations to the micro-stakes players making PokerStars history. The rules and prizes were clearly announced before the hand took place. Once the hand was dealt, the player first to act, “tbvle” raised 4 times the big blind to 20c, once this happened all players behind instantly went all-in, not wanting to make the mistake of folding and potentially losing what could be the biggest score of their life.
There was $57.69 in the middle before the flop, which is unheard of at a $0.02-$0.05 game. All players flipped their cards and waited to see the winner. The player’s hands and cards were:
Seat 1: s1rsc00pal0t ($15.96 in chips) Ad 4s
Seat 2: DeadRinger11 ($5.69 in chips) 6c Qs
Seat 3: chessman10 ($2.67 in chips) 2h 6h
Seat 4: firbh ($18.72 in chips) 4c Jc
Seat 5: tbvle ($12.62 in chips) Qh Qd
Seat 6: Paha Zhulik ($2.03 in chips) 2c 7c
The board came Jd Th Ks 7s 3s and the best hand going in held up as “tblye” was the recipient of $50,000 for that one hand and a seat in the WCOOP Main Event worth $5,200.
