PokerStars is going all Willy Wonka with the news that 19 Platinum Passes worth $570,000 will be distributed online and live at events like the Winter Online Series, the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, and PokerStars Festival London.

Mihai Manole has been competing in PokerStars live events for as many years as I have been writing about them. But he’s never bubbled one until the PokerStars Championship Prague.

The action was on the stone bubble spot when Manole found himself in the big blind with only two bigs. As he sat there, like a frightened child seated in a dental waiting room for a prebooked root canal without anaesthesia, Thomas Mercier put him all-in from the button. Manole flipped open his cards revealing A4 – not bad, but not as good as Mercier’s AJ, and five cards later Manole was out.

Doom.