In a stage-managed attempt at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) on Sunday, popular Team PokerStar’s pro, Randy “Nanonoko” Lew set a Guinness world record for “most online poker hands played in eight hours while remaining profitable.”
Randy racked up an impressive 23,493 hands which equates to almost 49 hands per minute or 1.23 seconds per hand. His profit? He just scraped home with $7.65.
Randy Lew plays as “Nanonoko” on PokerStars. He is famous for the astonishing number of hands he plays year after year and his ability to maintain his concentration and win rate. He was, therefore, the obvious candidate to make this attempt.
Nanonoko’s story is an inspiration to all wannabe online poker professionals. Top professional poker players tend to be ego driven, but not Randy. He was content for years to anonymously grind out profits at mid-stakes games. By putting in the volume, Randy has achieved PokerStar’s elusive Supernova Elite status every year since 2007. Not only that, but he has churned out profit like a machine. Just look at his graph:
Randy has played over five million hands on PokerStars alone, amassing over $2 million in profit, and that’s before bonuses and incentive payments. He also has the reputation of being one of the nicest guys in poker.
During his world record attempt Randy played for eight hours solid. He didn’t even take time to drink, eat or urinate. Of course, being the true internet pro he is, Randy still made time to keep up with internet chat while he played. He understands the priorities. He later said he wanted to pee at one time but “it kind of…went away.”
Of course, as with so many Guinness records, the record itself is no more than fabricated nonsense designed by marketing men to promote their business. The rules allowed Randy to ramp up his hand count playing on forty tables at once at lower stakes – inevitable losing money in the process. Then he could quickly recover those losses by concentrating on playing less hands at higher stakes. Randy did not take this to the extreme, but he certainly wouldn’t have made a profit without jumping stakes. A future participant could break this record simply by getting a break at the nosebleeds, then firing up 40 micro tables and folding for eight hours. Therefore the record itself is pretty meaningless.
In the face of criticism of the structure, PokerStars have hinted that the rules had to be kept facile in order for Guinness to approve them. No doubt Guinness’s average reader just about understands what ‘profitable’ means but their eyes would glaze over if faced with ‘bb/100’?
All in all, PokerStars will be happy that their publicity stunt has received some attention. They are sure to look after Randy as reward for his efforts. The world record itself may be meaningless, but nevertheless, it was still quite a challenge. So congratulations to Randy on becoming the official world champion in “most hands of poker played in eight hours whilst retaining continence” or something like that. A truly impressive feat.