View Archive |
Home
| Players | Player Focus
Player Focus: $tinger88
By Philip Tuck
11 October 2007
His biggest poker achievement to date is turning his original $50 deposit into more than $1 million
Brian Hastings aka "$tinger88" is a player in both huge online tournaments and huge online cash games too...
A student at Cornell University in New York, Brian Hastings, aka “$tinger88" on PokerStars, “Stinger885" on UltimateBet, and “LucLongley” on FullTilt has been tearing up online poker for the last year.He has won the $10,000 buy-in PokerStars High Stakes Showdown (a heads-up tournament) twice, for a combined pay day of $50,000, as well as a second place for $30,000. This is the highest stake tournament available online and arguably one of the most difficult to win - consistent results in it shows skill of the highest calibre.
He has also had a win in the PokerStars Sunday $200 Rebuy tourney for more than $57,000 - this is arguably the only contender to the High Stakes Showdown in terms of difficulty. Taking down the two hardest tournaments on the net really speaks for itself.
Overall Brian has cashed around $300,000 in PokerStars tournaments alone. This might sound like a lot of money, yet it is actually relatively small change to a player who regularly sits in some of the biggest online cash games in the world. Brian has consistently beaten every cash limit all the way to $50/100 no limit holdem. Not a bad progression from his early days playing $.05/.10 no-limit holdem on UltimateBet with a $30 bankroll.
In a recent interview he said his biggest poker achievement to date is turning his original $50 deposit into more than $1 million. That's an awesome achievement for a player not yet old enough to play in a las Vegas casino.
The swings at these stakes can make $300,000 look quite small - playing no-limit hold’em with $10,000 in front of you is not for the feint hearted. Brian is known for his expert hand analysis skills at these stakes - he is an instructor for CardRunners.com and is known for his articulate and clever tutoring videos.
Strangely for a player with the success of Brian, he actually does not want to play poker full time, wanting to finish his engineering degree and play poker as a profitable side line. As a result he may never reach the total online dominance of players like Sorrel Mizzi (zangbezan24) or Annette Obrestad (Annette_15) - the volume he puts in is just not enough. I doubt this will bother him much as he attacks the largest stake online cash games during the breaks in his week though - fame does not seem to be his number one priority.
THE OTHER TOP ONLINE PLAYERS
Top US Players
Top Swedish Players
Top German Players
Top Italian Players
Top Norwegian Players
Top Canadian Players
Top UK Players
Top Female Players
Top French Players
Who have we missed? Email and tell us who you want to read about
Plenty to smile about: $tinger88 has spun his original $50 deposit into more than $1 million in under two years