Player Focus: shaundeeb

Shaun Deeb is probably the highest volume online poker player in the world right now, often multi-tabling 30 tournaments at any one time...

22 August 2007

"He span his initial $30 deposit on PokerStars up to $33,000 in just a couple of weeks"
If you play in plenty of live poker tournaments chances are you will be familiar with the name Freddy Deeb. The popular Las Vegas-based pro took down over $2 million by winning the $50k HORSE event at this year’s World Series of Poker. But if online poker is your game the name Shaun Deeb will be more familiar.

Young Shaun is tearing up the online baize and is threatening to take over the Deeb name and claim it for himself. If you don't know the screen name “shaundeeb” you don't play much tournament poker online because he is one of the highest volume players on the planet. He must be constantly bleary-eyed because according to stats he normally plays over 20 tournaments a day.

In fact, on a 'good' day he has been known to play 30 tournaments at once. Not 30 Sit ‘n’ Gos but 30 multi-table tournaments (MTTs). That’s like playing half of the World Series in one sitting. Sick!

As he said in an interview: “Anytime someone asks me how I play so many tables at once, I tell them it took a lot of practice. Anyone who tries to play a lot of tables right away will be a significant loser at the tables. You are afforded so little time to make decisions that it's not something new players should try. If you take it baby steps and don't try to jump from three tables to thirty tables, it can be done.”

He is perhaps best-known for getting his online bankroll going by spinning his initial $30 deposit into $33,000 in just a couple of weeks. Because he is such a high volume player he has run roughshod over the PokerStars tournament leaderboard (TLB) and has got to play several members of Team PokerStars in $1,000 heads-up matches for winning the weekly TLB numerous times.

He came third in the yearly TLB rankings on PokerStars last year and is currently in first place (out of several hundred thousand) for this year with just over 29,000 points. He is 2k in front of xthesteinx and lilholdem954, who are both very high volume players too as you would expect. Do these guys ever go out? Probably not. By Shaun’s own admission he plans on playing around 10,000 tournaments this year.

Right now, Deeb, just 21 years of age, is looking forward to a trip to Spain where he is hoping to play in the European Poker Tour event in Barcelona (that runs from 28 August – 1 September inc).

So, if you still think Freddy, not Shaun, is the man you had better check out his blog – Shaun Not Freddy Deeb. That should set the record straight.


View shaundeeb's PVi Profile here

22/08/07

Shaun Deeb is currently sitting top of the PokerStars TLB for the year - and aims to be there at year-end too