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July was a month that saw PokerStars tournament fields grow to record heights. A combination of PokerStars 2X and a new tournament guarantee schedule has lifted the site to a whole new level. With such massive fields, and giant prizes, it was no surprise that July produced some memorable moments.

Here’s a review of how things panned out in month seven of the MTT TLB:

Weekly TLB

What better place to start a Multi-Table Tournament Leader Board review for July than with a new all-time record score for the Weekly TLB. For the week July 27th –August 2nd (mostly July, so it counts for this review), ‘bduds3737’ posted a seemingly impossible score of 5,785.40 – that’s 1,153.16 points more than the previous record!

So how did ‘bduds3737’ produce such a gargantuan tally?

The foundation for the score was a win in a Sunday Hundred Grand tournament featuring 23,960 players. That victory accounted for 3,112.40 of the total. There were further wins in a $50 Rebuy (561.42 points) and the Weekly $215 Limit Hold’em (350.96). Three other final tables and a host of strong cashes made up the rest of the score.

Four other players broke into the all-time top 20 Weekly TLB scores in July. Players ‘ftb_1988’ and ‘Metsfan512’ both joined the exclusive group of 16 players to have exceeded 4000 points in a week, and now occupy 9th and 5th place on the all-time list. ‘Kiba52’ and ‘TimDawg888’ fell just short of the 4000-point benchmark and hold the 19th and 18th ranked positions.

In the Weekly TLB match, the recent good form of the Team PokerStars Pros came to an end.

The month began with a victory for ‘RobTheCrook’ over Steve Paul-Ambrose for $3,000. Week 2 saw the PROs only victory as Greg Raymer overcame ‘dickson007’. Luca Pagano battled for 48 minutes before succumbing to ‘Kiba52’ in week 3. Week 4 saw Humberto Brenes fall to his first ever TLB match defeat, with ‘Metsfan512’ his conqueror.

Up until the end of July, the Pros lead the challengers 17 – 13.

Monthly TLB

It will come as no surprise to learn the July Monthly TLB was owned by ‘bdubs3737’. He was unable to replicate his record-breaking exploits over the longer period, but his score of 7,132.61 was still good enough for 6th place on the all-time Monthly TLB scores list. The $5,000 prize money will look good on top of July winnings.

Two other players did enough to make the Hall of Fame, with ‘imeasy2read’ taking 8th spot (7,047.97 points) and ‘jitterbug777’ getting 15th (6,487.83 points). Of course, they also received $3000 and $2000 respectively for their July performances.

The Monthly TLB Top 1000 $20,000 Freeroll saw a fairly typical split of North American and European players. In the end it was German ‘Turkishmcfly’ that took the $5,000 first prize, seeing off a stern challenge from TLB regulars ‘stealurmoney’ and ‘QuasiFiction’.

Full final table result can be seen below:

1. Turkishmcfly (Germany) $5,000.00
2. Deco8 (United States) $2,860.00
3. player9ball (Canada) $1,840.00
4. stealurmoney (United States) $1,380.00
5. QuasiFiction (United States) $1,100.00
6. germain133 (France) $900.00
7. Greg Boston (United States) $700.00
8. annodv (United Kingdom) $500.00
9. gconedog (United States) $320.00

Yearly TLB

‘derek8’s domination has continued throughout July with three MTT wins coming from thirteen final table appearances. His current score has now surpassed 33,000 points – less than 2,000 points shy of a new Yearly TLB record. As things stand, ‘derek8’ is in line to win the 5-Stamp PokerStars Passport.

Not to be outdone, current champion and record holder ‘shaundeeb’ remains in second place, albeit more than 2,500 points adrift. He still have five months to make up the ground, but he’ll earn a 3-Stamp PokerStars Passport if he can just maintain his current position.

Third in the Yearly TLB race gets a 2-Stamp PokerStars Passport and that place is currently held by ‘QuasiFiction’. Right now he’s almost 4,000 points back from first, so his first priority will be to hold off the chasing pack.

With seven months already invested in the competition, no-one is going to give up or back down. With WCOOP on the horizon, anything can happen.

Weekly TLB

May has been a quiet month for Weekly TLB scores, with only one player registering a score in the Weekly TLB all-time top 20. For the week of May 4th through 10th, ‘crunchyclam7’ posted a score of 3860.87, which was good enough for 17th spot in the Hall of Fame.

While it did not produce any monster scores, the week of May 18th through 24th was notable for tight margin of victory. ‘kared69’ took the win with 3033.26, but was only 17 points ahead of second place finisher ‘Mongreljade’. Overall, there were less than 250 points between the top 8 players.

In contrast, the final winner in May was ‘Schmidl89’, whose victory in the Turbo Takedown built a score that eclipsed the nearest rival by more than 500 points.

The Weekly TLB Challenge Matches went the way of Team PokerStars Pro in May, with four of the five matches going in the Pros' favor.

Dario Minieri picked up his first TLB Match win with victory in the first match of the month. The following week, Katja Thater was on the receiving end of the first Team PokerStars Pro female defeat of the year so far, when the in-form MrCasino bested her for $2,000.

The last three weeks have seen victories for Gavin Griffin (on debut), Hevad Khan (stretching his unbeaten record to three matches) and Andre Akkari. The first TLB Match in June will be for $4,000.

Monthly TLB

The Monthly TLB saw three players register scores on the all-time top 20 list.

May’s third place finisher ‘QuasiFiction’ squeaked onto the leader board in 19th place with 6,354.40 points, and second place finisher ‘grindnitout’ took 8th place with 6895.40.

May’s winner was MTT TLB legend ‘shaundeeb’. Shaun accrued 7,086.96 points in May, which earned him $5000 and 6th spot on the all-time leader board (he’s also in 16th with his previous best set back in March ’07).

The MTT TLB Top 1000 $20,000 Freeroll in May was won by ‘NO_CHIP$_4U!’. After six gruelling hours against the top tournament talent of PokerStars, he bested ‘IronRing08’ heads-up for the $5000 first prize.

Yearly TLB

At the time of writing, ‘derek8’ is maintaining his lead at the top of the leader board, now with 28,291.39 points. It’s been a productive month, as he has extended his lead over his nearest rival to over a thousand points. For the first time this year we have a clear favorite for the 5-Stamp PokerStars Passport.

In the other two money spots, second place is now held by ‘QuasiFiction’, who has nudged ‘DNA2RNA’ down into third. A big result for either could make all the difference.

Reminiscent of Tiger Woods on the second day of a major golf tournament, Monthly TLB winner ‘shaundeeb’ is sitting ominously in 5th place and is steadily making his way into the leading pack after a slow start.

You can keep track of the Yearly TLB race for yourself by opening the PokerStars software, selecting the ‘Requests’ menu and highlighting ‘Tournament Leader Board’. From the sub-menu, click on ‘This Year’ and you’ll be shown the latest standings.

Of course, you could always just check back here for the monthly update…

There used to be a time when the PokerStars Tournament Leader Board was more about pride than anything else. These days, doing well on the TLB can pretty much make a person's year (and if you don't believe me, just ask PokerStars Passport winner Dustin Mele). From freerolls to live event buy-ins, and yes, to still a great deal of pride, the PokerStars TLB is just another reason most of the world's top online tournament players hit the PokerStars tables.

Now, we see yet another reason. PokerStars has announced that the top 1,000 players on the PokerStars TLB (as of May 31 at 23:59:59) will have a shot at more than $165,000 in prizes, including ten $12,000 2008 World Series Main Event packages. The top 100 players in the freeroll will walk away with at least some cash.

The tournament runs on June 8 at 13:30 ET.

For more information on the TLB, visit the PokerStars Tournament Leader Board web page.

Another month of MTT Tournament Leader Board action is complete. This is how it shaped up:

Weekly TLB

April saw two new players join the exclusive 4000 club, the elite group composed of players who have posted a Weekly TLB score of more than 4000 points. Canadian ‘RevenX’ landed in 5th on the all-time Weekly TLB scores list with his 4150.51, and American ‘ImaLuckSac’ managed 7th with 4060.20. Both scores were posted in the same week.

It was honors-even in the challenge matches against the Team PokerStars Pros. On April 6, Bill Chen made a winning debut for the Pros and took down ‘bubbaloo2’. The following week Tom McEvoy saw off his challenger ‘ahsert’. By April 20, the prize had grown to $4,000 when the previously undefeated Victor Ramdin lost his unblemished record to ‘RevenX’. That match marked the biggest TLB Challenge Match prize pool of the year so far.

On the last match of the month, the 2004 WSOP Main Event winner and TLB Challenge Match veteran Greg Raymer took on ‘HittinChills’. After a gruelling 40 minutes of play, it was the challenger that came out on top, sending Raymer to only his second defeat in seven matches since January 2007.

Monthly TLB

The Monthly TLB record set in February by ‘usourcek’ was eclipsed in April by ‘ImaLuckSac’. The total of 8201.88 is only the second Monthly TLB score to exceed 8000 points. The score was particularly impressive as it does not include any wins in a PokerStars major (e.g. Sunday Million, Sunday Hundred Grand) which is usually a hallmark of a big TLB score.

Some of the highlights of this new Monthly TLB benchmark include three wins in tournaments with more than 1000 players, and five more wins in tourneys with smaller fields. In addition to the tourney wins, maLuckSac posted ten other final table appearances.

‘D1rtyR1v3r’ took down April’s MTT TLB Top 1000 $20,000 Freeroll. The first prize of $5,000 went nicely with the $150 he won for coming 48th on the TLB.

Yearly TLB

We’re 1/3rd of the way into the Yearly TLB and the competition for the PokerStars Passports could go any way.

There are now 21 players with more than 20,000 TLB points for the year with only 6,000 points separating them. Just a few spaces back in 24th place is last year’s winner and current Yearly TLB record holder ‘shaundeeb’. The current leader is ‘derek8’ with 26096.30, but second place ‘DNA2RNA’ is just 95 points behind and there’s a long, long way to go.

The PokerStars Tournament Leader Board competition now has three months behind it. Though it's still anybody's game for the year, there are some folks who have been working pretty hard to jump out to the early lead. Here's a quick recap of where the TLB competitions look so far.

PokerStars Weekly Tournament Leader Board

So far in 2008 there have been 13 weekly TLB head up matches with members of Team PokerStars Pro. The Team PS Pros are currently leading the challengers 7-6. Of those matches, Humberto Brenes and Hevad Khan won their games and maintain their all-time records as the only unbeaten Pros. The female members of Team PokerStars Pro are unbeaten this year with a 3-0 record (all three have won one game each).

The biggest winners so far in 2008 are ‘tpir90036’ and ‘stainley88’ who have both taken down $3000 wins in the Weekly TLB Heads Up Challenge matches.

During the week of February 24-March 2, ‘usourcek’ crushed the record number of points for a weekly TLB. His 4632.24 points eclipsed the ‘0moneyman0’s nine-month-old record of 4281.12.

Also worthy of mentions are ‘Jagz7’ and ‘DNA2RNA’ who in 2008 have joined just seven other players to have scored more than 4000 points in a TLB week.

PokerStars Monthly Tournament Leader Board

PokerStars has already awarded more than $100,000 in prize money to the top performers of the Monthly Tournament Leader Board. So far five players have walked away $5000 winners: ‘Kenrof’, ‘derek8’ and ‘usourcek’ who won the Monthly TLB, and ‘XbonezX’ and ‘whynot138’ who took down the Monthly TLB Top 1000 $20,000 Freeroll.

The top three all-time Monthly TLB scores have all been posted in the 1st quarter of 2008. ‘usourcek’ continued his record breaking habits by becoming the first and only player to have scored 8000 points during the course of a Monthly TLB. The second place spot was taken by March’s winner ‘derek8’, and third on the all-time list belongs to ‘DNA2RNA’, who came the runner-up to ‘usourcek’ in February. He may have missed out on the glory but still claimed $3000 for his 2nd place.

PokerStars Yearly Tournament Leader Board

The competition for the three PokerStars Passports awarded by the Yearly Tournament Leader Board is heating up already. ‘DNA2RNA’ is leading the way at the time of this writing with 24,788.77 points. All of the top ten are above 20,000 points and within a few good showings of the top spot.

A little further back, but still in the top 100, are last year’s top two TLB players, ‘shaundeeb’ (lurking ominously in 83rd) and ‘devinr12’ (92nd). With nine months to go, it’s too early to rule anyone out.

At the end of the 2007, when PokerStars introduced the PokerStars Passport and opened it up to the top 100 players on the TLB, you just had to know big things were in store for 2008. Now, those big things are happening.

PokerStars has just made several updates to the TLB that make it more than a contest of pride and will. Now, every month, there's big money at stake. What's more, at the end of every year, there are prizes worth fighting for.

According to the updated Tournament Leader Board pages on PokerStars' website, the top 200 leaders of each monthly TLB contest will split up $30,000 in cash with $5,000 of that money going to the monthly winner. Then, then top 1000 players each month will have a shot at a $20,000 prize pool in the monthly TLB freeroll.

That's all pretty cool in itself. However, when you look at the yearly TLB contest, the prizes are something everybody will be looking to score. First off, the top 100 players on TLB out of the year will get a $100,000 freeroll. What's more, the top three TLB leaders will walk away with PokerStars Passports of their own. The first place player will get five trips and buy-ins to major events. Second place gets a three-trip passport. Third place will receive a two-trip passport.

Because the TLB is such a pretigious place to be, PokerStars has also created the Tournament Leader Board Hall of Fame. There, you will be able to find the players who have scored the highest points tallies on the Weekly, Monthly and Yearly TLBs. You will also find a breakdown of the PokerStars players who have won the Weekly TLB the most times since Jan ’05.

With Janaury still kicking and eleven months to go, there is still a lot of work to be done. However, by this time next year, we'll have a whole new group of PokerStars Passport holders to follow around.

Will one of them be you?

Let's start with an understatement:

Winning the PokerStars yearly Tournament Leader Board is no easy task--one person in a sea of thousands of tournaments and tens of thousands of tournament players. One must dedicate so many hours and endure so much tournament play, it's almost impossible to conceive of how they do it.

Last year, PokerStars player Shaun Deeb came tantalizingly close to the top of the board. He finished in third place, just a couple of thousand TLB points behind the eventual winner, tnetter. This past year, Deeb could look above his name on the list and find no one else.

In 2007, Deeb started playing with no real idea what his achievement might earn him. Of course, it comes with the tournament winnings and the respect of countless online peers. This year, it comes with something more.

This week, PokerStars told Deeb he would also receive a full prize package to the EPT Grand Final in Monte Carlo.

Deeb, as you might expect, accepted his prize and will now be taking his astounding tournament game to Monaco in April.

So, if you have plans to be in Monte Carlo this year, you might watch out for this year's TLB winner, Shaun Deeb. The word on the street is...he knows what he's doing.

Congratulations to Deeb for his achievement in 2007 and his entry into the EPT Grand Final.