PokerStars Fails To Break Own Guiness World Tournament Record

Back in June, 2013, PokerStars organized a $1 buy-in $300,000 guaranteed tournament which attracted a massive 225,000 players to officially break the record for the biggest poker tournament ever played. That was PokerStars’ fifth World Record tournament attempt and eventually Russian player “Mr.SlavaPro” won the event for a  $25,000 pay day.
Then on Sunday, February 23rd, PokerStars’ attempted once again to beat its own world record, but ultimately fell 18,381 players short of its stated target of 230,000 registrations. In other words, a total of 211,619 players turned out for the attempt, which was 6% short of the current world record.
It’s ‘hard to talk about failure when such a vast number of players turn out to enter an online poker tournament, however, one explanation for the diminished attendance might be that this time around no late registrations were allowed. Failed attempts aside, the tournament paid out money to the top 60,000 finishers and with a fast-structure that saw 849 players a minute eliminated, just over four hours was all it would then take before Ukrainian player “JustAcaT699” exited in 3rd ($10,000) to pave the way for the final battle between Germany player “Dal2009” and Denmark’s “Behnel.”
Without any deals being struck, the final heads-up was subsequently over in lightning speed when Behnel (K-J) lost his all-in against Dal2009 (5-5) on a 5-6-3-4-8 board, to finish the runner-up for a $15,000, while “Dal2009” was awarded the $25,000 first place prize. Not bad work for a $1 investment which took just 249 minutes to mature.
Guinness World Record Attempt:
Players: 211,619
Buy-in: $1
Prize pool: $300,000 gtd
1: Dal2009 (Germany), $25,000
2: Behnel (Denmark), $15,000
3: JustAcaT699 (Ukraine), $10,000.00
4: wee1188 (Canada), $7,500
5: (j0ker) 161 (Russia), $5,000
6: modilgiani (Russia), $3,500
7: linkirk (United Kingdom) $2,500
8: jbsbuchecha (Brazil), $2,000
9: crzycanuckle (Canada), $1,500