By Kevin Felix | February 22, 2010

Players normally flock to PokerStars on a daily basis, but from February 10th through February 21st, the world’s largest online poker room gave its players an extra incentive: the chance to win big in its 40 billionth hand promotion, dubbed F40.

The highlight of the promotion was the build-up to the 40 billionth cash game hand dealt at the monster poker room. For the entirety of the week and a half, jackpots were awarded for every millionth hand. Anyone dealt into the each million milestone hand received $40 for every VPP they had earned at the table over the previous 40 hands. PokerStars was even generous enough to give each player a bonus VPP in order to guarantee everyone in the hand would win at least $40, just in case someone had just taken their seat. The winner of each milestone hand would have his prize doubled.

The magic 40 billionth hand was the one everyone was waiting for, though. For that one “Mega Milestone” hand, each player dealt cards at the table received a staggering $400 for each VPP collected over the past 40 hands. And, of course, the hand’s winner would get twice as much. Leading up to the Mega Milestone hand, 280,000 players were logged on to PokerStars at the same time.

It all went down at “Naef III,” a six-max $2/$4 No-Limit Hold’em table. PokerStars admin HostJeff paused the game, as was the practice at each milestone hand, in order to explain to all six players how things were about to work. Once the instructions were over, the hand was dealt.

Once all the community cards were out, the board was 7-Q-7-10-7 and the happiest player at the table was Senecady, who, with K-10, made a full house and won the $401.10 pot. More importantly, though, the Swedish player’s bonus was a whopping $24,000!

Oddly, three players – jeckjeck, zawaaa, and 13_Xerxes_13 – all folded pre-flop. Even after the lengthy pause in the action and the explanation from HostJeff, they still must not have understood that any money they might have lost in the hand would pale in comparison to the bonus money they were going to win. Jeckjeck had the largest chip stack to begin the hand - $515.40 – and even though he won the smallest jackpot, he still took home $1,500. That sum would have been doubled to $3,000 had he won the hand.

In the end, here is what each player won for the 40 billionth hand:

13_Xerxes_13 (France) — $1,500
jeckjeck (Sweden) — $12,400.80
Joe Hahn (Holland) — $1,500
Senecady (Sweden) — $24,000 - winner
thecooler992 (United States) — $15,590.20
zawaaa – (United States) — $15,590.20

No gigantic milestone hand that produced over $70,000 in cash prizes should be discussed without showing everyone the complete hand history, so here you go:

PokerStars Game #40000000000: Hold’em No Limit ($2/$4 USD) - 2010/02/19 12:43:11 ET
Table ‘Naef III’ 6-max Seat #3 is the button
Seat 1: Senecady ($117 in chips)
Seat 2: Joe Hahn ($412 in chips)
Seat 3: zawaaa ($266.45 in chips)
Seat 4: 13_Xerxes_13 ($400 in chips)
Seat 5: thecooler992 ($142.55 in chips)
Seat 6: jeckjeck ($515.40 in chips)
13_Xerxes_13: posts small blind $2
thecooler992: posts big blind $4

*** HOLE CARDS ***
jeckjeck: folds
Senecady: raises $113 to $117 and is all-in
Joe Hahn: raises $295 to $412 and is all-in
zawaaa: folds
13_Xerxes_13: folds
thecooler992: calls $138.55 and is all-in
Uncalled bet ($269.45) returned to Joe Hahn

*** FLOP *** 7sQh7d
*** TURN *** 7sQh7d Tc
*** RIVER *** 7sQh7d Tc7c

*** SHOW DOWN ***
thecooler992: shows 5dKh (three of a kind, Sevens)
Joe Hahn: shows JdKd (three of a kind, Sevens)
thecooler992 collected $25.55 from side pot
Joe Hahn collected $25.55 from side pot
Senecady: shows KcTs (a full house, Sevens full of Tens)
Senecady collected $350 from main pot

Let’s just hope for jeckjeck, zawaaa, and 13_Xerxes_13’s mental health that none of them had the case 7 or a Queen.

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