So far, it’s been the year of the online poker player at the 2012 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, or PCA as it’s commonly called. You’ll recall that last week, Team PokerStars Online’s Viktor Isildur1 Blom, sporting a new hairdo, took down the $100,000 buy-in Super High Roller event for $1.2 million. For Blom, the tournament marked his first major live win and ensured that his fame wouldn’t be limited to the online realm.

Over the weekend, another online poker pro shined, Randy NanonokoLew (pictured). The PokerStars pro set the Guinness World Record for the most number of online poker hands played in eight hours while returning a profit. On Sunday, Lew played 23,493 hands over the course of a standard workday, a new record. He averaged 2,936.63 hands per hour during the eight-hour stint, or 48.94 hands per minute.

He was camped out in front of two monitors on a stage inside the Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas, the site of the 2012 PCA. He was decked out in a black PokerStars shirt and a white collared shirt and intently battled during the afternoon hours. His time at the tables earned him 22,784 Frequent Player Points, or FPPs, on PokerStars.

Remember that the Guinness World Record attempt mandated that the youngster turn a profit, $7.65 to be exact. While it doesn’t sound like a lot, take into consideration that at one point during Lew’s attempt, he was down about $1,200. He told the PokerStars Blog following his session what his mindset was at that point: “I was like, ‘Ugh, I’ve got to chase those losses.’ I really was running horrible. But I was trying to stay focused like, ‘You can’t let this get to you.’ But, I still played well and tried to play my best and eventually it worked out. Twelve hundred was rough, though. It could have been game over, to be honest.”

When he was down $1,200 during his Guinness World Record attempt, Lew jumped up to $5/$10 from stakes of $1/$2 and below.

Lew discussed how his latest claim to fame compared to what some in the poker community know him for, winning the Asian Pacific Poker Tour’s (APPT) Main Event in Macaulast November for nearly $500,000: “Wining APPT Macau was pretty big, and having this right after, those two things are on the top of my list at the moment, to be honest. This is a great feeling. I finished it. I had a crowd. Everyone clapped for me.”

Over on TwoPlusTwo, the poker community was critiquing the feat. After all, Lew was exempt from PokerStars’ current limit of 24 tables, a privilege that the site noted could be extended to its entire user base in the near future. Therefore, not everyone on TwoPlusTwo was impressed with Lew’s achievement.

To that end, one poster on TwoPlusTwo wrote, “I like Randy, but this promo is absurd. There are any number of mass-tablers that could 40-table their way to a world record here; they’ll just never get the chance. From what I’ve seen, Randy is an excellent player and a class act – they could have found any number of records for him to legitimately break, and instead they rigged it.”

The news from PokerStars that other players could soon be able to open more than 24 tables at a time has not gone unnoticed. So far, however, PokerStars has made no indication of when the change will occur. The room is fresh off changing its rake calculation method, much to the chagrin of many in the community.

The previous world record for the most number of poker hands played in an eight-hour period was 23,492.

Lew played a variety of stakes during his attempt, leaving some in the poker community to point out that players of all bankrolls were able to sit alongside Lew during his endeavor: “PokerStars is obviously having one of their superstar players play all the different stakes to give micro-grinders a chance to play with a big name player. I really don’t get why people are complaining about this. Micro-grinders would never have the chance to play with someone of his stature and I think it’s kind of cool.”

If nothing else, Lew was proud of his accomplishment and posted on Twitter shortly afterwards, “Thanks everyone for supporting me in setting a new Guinness World Record for poker. The support is what keeps me going, so thank you again.” He’s currently among the 471 players still alive on Day 2 of the 2012 PCA Main Event.

Visit PokerStars for more information on Lew’s record-setting day.