Kiwi Player Lifts $68,420 for Winning PokerStars’ 65 Billionth Hand

New Zealand’s Christopher ‘yllams’ Small pocketed $68,420 for winning the 65 billionth hand played at PokerStars as part of their ‘Road to 100 Billion’ promotion.

Christopher Small was playing in a 10¢ and 25¢ No-Limit Hold’em event when [geolink href=”https://www.pokernewsreport.com/pokerstars”]PokerStars[/geolink] announced that his table would feature the 65 billionth hand, resulting in a flurry of activity as every one of the six players at the table moved all-in pre-flop in the hope of winning the landmark hand.

Small had been dealt A♣ K♥ for this massive hand, while one of his opponents, known as modesty1705, held 10♦ 10♥ and another showed K-Q, with the other three possessing rags.

The flop came A♦ A♥ 9♠ to give Small trip aces, with the turn showing the 4♣ and the river the 7♥ to give the Kiwi the big bucks prize, while everyone else at the table received the rather handy consolation prize of at least $1,710 from a table that possessed a prize pool of about $150.

Small spoke to PokerStarsBlog about his massive cash win, saying that he “was 24-tabling (at the time) and saw the pop-up telling me I was involved in the 65 billionth hand”.

To his relief, he found himself with “A-K when I looked at the table”, rightly considering that he had been given “a dream” starting hand that left him unable to comprehend his good fortune.

While messages of congratulations filled the chat box at the table, a shell-shocked Small was only capable of typing in one word…“unbelievable”.

PokerStars had more than 230,000 players contesting different competitions across about 34,000 tables at the time of Small’s massive triumph.

The website produced a statement saying that, “in total, $770,588 in prizes was awarded during the 65 Billion celebration, with over 1,600 winners collecting cash”.

The huge payouts at PokerStars just keep coming, though, with every five billionth hand featuring a prize on the ‘Road to 100 Billion’.

With PokerStars showing some very healthy growth of late following their troubles with the US Department of Justice (DoJ) back on April 15 – ‘Black Friday’ – it is very probable that the 70 billionth hand will be dealt some time this year.