Bastian Hess chip leads the Platinum Pass charge in the PSPC

January 31, 2023

PSPC

by Jack Stanton

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3 Minute Read

German health worker Bastian Hess currently has the biggest stack of all Platinum Pass winners with two levels left on Day 2

“Helping people get healthy again.” That’s the motto of Platinum Pass winner Bastian Hess, who usually spends his days working at the physical therapy centre his mother started 23 years ago in Cadenberge, north Germany.

He’s worked in the family business for around seven years, one of 45 employees. But during the pandemic, the centre had to reduce its service (“We shut down a little, but not all the way as we provide an essential health service,” Hess tells us.)

But it was during this downtime that he decided to play more poker. He first started playing–as so many of us did–in his early teens when a friend got a poker set for Christmas. Every hand went to the river, and all strategy went out the window, but it didn’t matter. He loved the game.

So one day, when he was off work having caught covid, he decided to try his luck in the PokerStars Mega Path, an online steps promotion where players could win their way to the PokerStars Players Championship (PSPC) for very little.

He got into the $109 step, followed by the $1,100. Then he won a Platinum Pass. “All on one bullet,” he says. “It was amazing.”

Spraggy handed Bastian Hess his Platinum Pass at EPT Barcelona

ENDING DAY 1 ON A HIGH

Do you know what else is amazing? Finishing Day 1 of the biggest tournament of your life–one which has multi-millions for the winner–as one of the biggest stacks in the room.

“It was really crazy,” Hess says, looking back on last night. “I bagged up 295,000 [the starting stack was 60,000] and I was in the top five stacks. I turned my phone on this morning and everyone was like, what the f*** is going on? You’re top five? What’s going on?”

Hess saw his name listed among poker familiar names like Chris Moorman, Josh Arieh, and PokerStars Team Pro Arlie Shaban at the top of the end-of-Day-1 counts.

And he hasn’t slowed down on Day 2 either. As we enter the penultimate level of Day 2, Hess remains a top stack in the room and with 417,000, he currently leads the Platinum Pass charge.

“It’s a very nice stack,” he says. “I just hope I don’t get nervous when the payouts come out.”

NOTE: The payouts have now been announced and you can view them here.

Bastian Hess has the biggest stack of all Platinum Pass winners

INSANE RAIL INCOMING?

“There’s a big group of German, Austrian, and Swiss guys, around 40 Platinum Pass winners, and we all have a big WhatsApp group,” Hess continues. “We met in November in Cologne when Xflixx [PokerStars Team Pro Felix Schneiders] invited us there for a meet-up. we had a great time and made some new friends, and everyone’s rooting for me.”

Hess also has his girlfriend, brother, and eight friends here in the Bahamas with him. “It’s been great,” he says. “I’m the only one who plays poker! But they’re all rooting for me to go far.”

Right now, Hess is in a great position to do just that. But if things don’t go his way, he simply wishes for one of his newfound friends to make a deep run.

“I hope we have at least one Platinum Pass winner from Germany on the final table,” he says. “the rail would be insane!”