Shaun Deeb Internet Sensation

If you ask a prolific Internet tournament player to name three of the best online poker tournament players on the planet it is unlikely that the name of Shaun Deeb will not be mentioned. Everything Deeb has done in online poker is the stuff of legend. He made his first ever deposit of $30 and has never looked back. In fact, he turned that $30 into over $33,000. That sounds very impressive on its own merit; however Deeb managed this feat in less than two weeks.

Deeb is such a large volume poker player in the tournaments that he admits that he is aiming to play 10,000 online poker tournaments per year. Most of these will be Sit and go poker tournaments.
New players would be a significant loser at the tables if they tried to emulate his multi tabling of the MTTs but with practise (a lot of it) Shaun has mastered the techniques needed and shows a good profit whilst playing at his high level of volume. He recommends players take baby steps and they can make the grade.

Deeb is constantly in the running for the online player of the year titles, which requires large playing volume to be played to stay in contention. He has said that he runs between ten and twenty tournament tables at once and plays nearly every tournament on Pokerstars, his site of choice, to help him gain the necessary points to remain on top in the online poker races. This massive amount of experience should stand him in good stead as now that he has turned to the live poker scene to increase his profile and capture a WSOP bracelet to go with his numerous online plaudits.

Shaun’s attempts at crushing the live poker scene have not gone as smoothly as many players suggested after his online dominance. He played at the WSOP in 2007 and whilst he cashed three times he did not make it to the final table in any of the events. He did not play the WSOP in 2008 preferring to concentrate on his online play but made a return in 2009 and posted five cashes but again no final table appearance. On August 6th 2009 he won the EPT High Rollers Event for $86,000 and has other small cashes and wins in his fledgling live poker career.

His online wins are far more impressive. He has won the Sunday Warm up in 2008 for over $100,000. He won the Tuesday tournament at Stars for $81,000 and the big tournament on Full Tilt that takes place on a Monday for $84,000. He also won a WCOOP bracelet in 2008. Deeb is prone to berating opponents on the chat and has alluded to being prone to tilting which has affected his results. Deeb attributes his ability to profit from online poker to the 180 man Sit and Go poker tournaments which he plays on a regular basis and has profited very well from them.

Deeb is an excellent example of someone who plays a discipline of the game that he knows he can profit from and rolls out this opportunity to the max to bring in lots of profit. He then invests this money into bigger online tournaments and uses his sharpened skills to look for the big prize payouts by capturing one of these big events. So far, this strategy has paid off for him as he has over $600,000 in live cashes and well over $2 million online. Due to his lack of volume in live events (he is not a regular on the circuit) we have not seen the best of Deeb yet. Most poker experts consider it only a matter of time before Shaun takes down a big event and earns the reputation in live events that he enjoys online, where he is one of the most experienced and feared players on the virtual tables.

By Malcolm Clarke