Boumaaza Bachir aka Chiren80 aka Athene

December 27th, 2009

PokerStars.com recently announced their “online team.” Over 2,000 players turned in an application to join the team that is a complimentary team to the Team PokerStars Pro team. One of those players is Chiren80, also known as Boumaaza Bachir. Many of you likely do not know the screen name Chiren80, but if you are a World of Warcraft fan, you might know him by his handle of Athene.

On WoW, Athene gained famed by going online and proclaiming himself to be the best paladin in the world. He then backed it up by reaching the top of every ranking on the game. His biggest achievement in WoW was breaking all three power leveling records in the span of 1 day and 2 hours. The prior overall record for reaching level 70 was 1 day, 19 hours, and 39 minutes. Also, Athene was the first player to ever reach level 79 in the game.
After achieving everything that he had wanted in WoW, Athene decided to take his shot at online poker. As such, Chiren80 was born. The whole purpose for taking on poker was simple, he needed to make money and gaming does not pay very well. He made the announcement back in February of this year on his blog. He basically told his followers that there was nothing left to prove and that he needed to make money. He felt that after making over $1,500 in a month, he was on the right path.

Chiren80 continues to make videos online about his gaming and poker escapades and gives tips and tricks about how others can do the same as him. He is also trying to take his shot at setting records in online poker. He is currently trying to set a new record for hands played in a month. He is attempting to play 1 Million hands in the month of December.
Whether or not Chiren80 is on the right path in poker is debatable. From looking at his stats, Chiren80 is what is known as a rakeback grinder. That means that the majority of the money he makes is from bonuses received by playing online. He has logged over 3.09 Million hands. His net profit for all those hands is a mere $11,353. That equates to 0.003 a hand. This means he averages a 1 penny win every four hands. While he is a “winning player”, without rakeback his efforts would seem to be near fruitless.

It is clear that Chiren80 is an accomplished gamer. However, it still remains to be seen as to whether he really has what it takes to make it in poker. Then again, the primary objective of poker is supposed to be to make money. Right now, Chiren80 is a profitable player at the tables and makes even more money with rakeback and other bonuses. If he can continue this trend, who can fault his methods.