09 Jan 12

The Daily Rewind: nanonoko's Record, 'Stars French Headache, Blom Back Online

Today we hail PokerStars grinder Randy "nanonoko" Lew and hear about his extraordinary record set yesterday. There's some bad news for PokerStars in France and it seems Viktor Blom managed one day away from the tables following his High Roller victory.

The Daily Rewind is your one-stop-shop for a sharp review of the day in poker. Join us here for a mix of the latest news and a more irreverent insight into the poker world. Today we discovered the following topics for you:

"nanonoko" makes the record books

Randy "nanonoko" Lew further cemented his reputation yesterday as the world's most elite grinder after he broke the Guinness World Record for number of hands played within a specific time period.

The half man-half machine played for 8 hours straight from within the huge poker room at the Atlantis while the PCA main event was in full swing.

Undeterred by trivial matters such as bathroom breaks, water or food, Lew's steely focus saw him play upto 37 tables at once, mainly at the microstakes level. The end result? As we all expected, it was something of a breeze for "nanonoko" who becomes the latest PokerStars pro to take grinding to new heights.

Here are the figures:

Hands: 23,493
Hours: 8
Hands per hour: 2936.63
Hands per minute: 48.94
Seconds per hand: 1.23
Hours of live poker (at 30 hands per hour): 783.10
FPPs earned: 22,784
Profit: $7.65

Just another day at the office for "nanonoko"

Winamax overtakes PokerStars.fr

The beginning of the new year has been somewhat trying for the poker superpower that is PokerStars.

Rake changes across the board have been causing unrest amongst PokerStars players, so much so that protests were staged and today news from tracking site Pokerscout doesn't get any better for the bigwigs at 'Stars HQ; it's reported that French competitor Winamax.FR has overtaken PokerStars.FR for the first time since inception.

Winamax boast an average of 1980 cash players over the past 7 days with PokerStars logging 1680 players for the same period, and in doing so become the first competitor to displace PokerStars's total market dominance.

High stakes corner

Let's face it, when it comes to high stakes action, Viktor "Isildur1" Blom is the man we all want to know about. For all intents and purposes, High Stakes Corner may as well be renamed Blom Stakes Corner, and today is no different.

Blom's stock rose rapidly this week after his Super High Roller win over at the PCA, and in a rare interview following his victory, the shy Scandinavian claimed he would be taking a break after his maiden tournament success.

There was no cause for alarm for Blom's fans though, as he managed to take just one day off before returning to the online felt. It wasn't all plain sailing though, as he managed to drop $96,736 in less than 500 hands according to HSDB.

It was also a torrid day for "LiangYu" and Phil "MrSweets28" Galfond who both lost close to $120,000 on the day, succumbing to the likes of "patpatman", "Berndsen12" and "diggidave", who each won just shy of $150,000 over the past 24 hours.

After his $1.25m win, the games are about to get big

Daily Signoff

Today's signoff comes courtesy of the witty photoshoppers over at 2+2. Daniel Negreanu and Phil Galfond's Twitter comments last night about their "bromance" have sparked an amusing photoshop thread which has already produced some cracking pictures.

Some people just have too much time on their hands...