Dani ‘Ansky’ Stern Retires From Poker

(Photo: Worldpokertour.com)

Dani ‘Ansky451’ Stern, the high-stakes online pro who was the main instigator of the PokerStars’ boycott after their infamous decision to cut rewards for their SuperNovaElite (SNE) players, has tweeted his retirement from the world of poker.

Stern was already a well-known poker pro when the whole PokerStars SNE debacle erupted, having participated in the 2009 poker reality TV show ‘2 Months, 2 Million’ which followed Stern and his poker friends  Jay Rosenkrantz, Emil Patel, and Brian Roberts as they attempted to earn $2million in online play over the course of two months.

Although they failed, the quartet won over $676,000, Stern responsible for $100,800 of the total. Rosenkrantz was the main contributor $406,500, while Patel cashed for $161,900 and Roberts profited $7,500 for the team.

As my colleague wrote last year in a ‘Where are they Now?’ article, ‘In order to reach the goal, they tried different things including organizing a boot camp at their Las Vegas mansion and a high-stakes homegame that featured Bertrand Grospellier, David Williams, Andrew Lichtenberger, and Andrew Robl. Since the $2 million goal was truly unreachable, in the final episode, they changed the goal to $1 million but to no avail.’

Stern’s retirement news prompted some reminisces of the show, one friend posting…

Stern has earned millions in his poker career, which began back in the Moneymaker-inspired boom years – his career tournament earnings on Hendon Mob showing a very healthy $3,695,729 which includes a $548,315 cash from back in 2009 when he took down the 40th Anniversary $40k WSOP tournament.

His online bio at Highstakesdb.com reads: ‘Prior to Black Friday, Stern regularly played in the $200/$400 NLHE and PLO games. He continued to play post Black Friday, firstly from Toronto, then from Mexico, although after suffering some online losses he realised that the nosebleed games were simply too tough and had too much variance for his liking and he became a $5/$10 and $10/$20 PLO reg for 2-3 years, eventually climbing the limits once more as his bankroll grew and his game improved.’

His name came to the attention of the wider poker audience when he called for a boycott of PokerStars in the wake of their highly-publicised and much-criticised changes 2 year ago, the boycott calls launched by players who believed PokerStars misled its customers, with changes which “crossed the line into outright deception” and were “extremely unethical” according to Stern.

One fan tweeted his respect for Stern’s decision to stand up and be counted…

There was, however, some humour involved in the retirement farewell messages, one wit referring to Ansky’s tough and ultimately costly battles against online legend ‘Berri Sweet’ …

…with Ansky rising to the humorous challenge with good grace…

Quite what Stern’s plans outside of poker-playing are remain to be seen, but PokerTube wish him all the best for the future.