I remember the video settings in Unreal Tournament 2004... if you maxed out all the options, it would say "Holy shit!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6oEBrAYowg

Is this a thing? A competitive category for some sort of athletics or performance tournament?

As you can see from the sign behind the table this is a 9 Ball tournament between Canada & the US. If you're not familiar with the game there is a cue ball and 9 numbered balls. The primary requirement for a legal shot is the cue ball must first hit the lowest numbered ball remaining on the table. In this case the 5 ball was between the cue and the 2 ball.

The tall mustached guy in the red shirt applauding the shot is Cliff Thorburn former World Snooker Champion and World #1 Ranked snooker player back in the 80's. I saw him at Dalhousie University's SUB giving a trick shot demonstration. Unbelievable. If he's giving you a standing O you done good.

That's they key here it is played with one deck at a time, but there is often more than one deck knocking around in the shoe. Especially when playing at a high level they can swap decks as often as every couple of hands.

Cards quickly start to bend and warp & when the blinds alone are in the 100's or 1000's the cost of a new deck every few hands is pretty negligible. A decent casino will swap the decks frequently throughout a night/tournament.

The above should not happen if proper procedure is followed, one deck should never touch or mix with another, but I can see how it might happen by accident.

Other likely possibility is a manufacturing defect, though again with proper procedure that should be spotted when a new deck is spread out for the players to see. (also very unlikely with high grade decks).

This is Texas Hold 'em, and it's only ever played with one deck. The entire point of texas hold 'em is that a good player can calculate the statistical probability of what he has versus what the other players have, because they can all see the community cards.

If you introduce a second deck, it would completely mess up all those statistics. It's possible there are multiple deck variants of poker, but this certainly isn't one of them.

Tournament poker is always played with one deck at a time.

Is it a hoax? I have been rooting around trying to see.

None of the stuff I found on-line has Lars in the same room as the interviewer. He doesn't do speed tournaments because he is so much faster than anyone.

He also has been at this since at least 2012, based on dates of things posted ABOUT him.

And the most damning -- Guinness Book of World Records says Luis Martin is fastest. http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/fastest-time-to-shoot-10-arrows

If this guy is really this good, why hasn't he contacted Guinness?

I think hoax.

The Jenga tournament had to be suspended, I suppose.

FINAL FANTASY XV?!
WTF?!

adjective
Final:1.coming at the end of a series.
"the final version of the report was presented"
synonyms: last, closing, concluding, finishing, end, terminating, ultimate, eventual
"the final year of study"
antonyms: first
reached or designed to be reached as the outcome of a process or a series of events.
"the final cost will easily run into six figures"
allowing no further doubt or dispute.
"the decision of the judging panel is final"
synonyms: irrevocable, unalterable, absolute, conclusive, irrefutable, incontrovertible, indisputable, unchallengeable, binding
"their decisions are final"

noun
noun: final; plural noun: finals
1. the last game in a sports tournament or other competition, which decides the winner of the tournament.
synonyms: decider, clincher, final game/match
"the Stanley Cup final"


ps. I never finished Final Fantasy VII, but really loved it

The Stephen Colbert clip has the "We want juggling to be taken seriously as a sport" version, while the version here is "Let's have a fun tournament at a juggling convention"

Congratulations! Your video, Unbelievably Bad Beat at $1 Million Buy-in Poker Tournament, has reached the #1 spot in the current Top 15 New Videos listing. This is a very difficult thing to accomplish but you managed to pull it off. For your contribution you have been awarded 2 Power Points.

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Can anyone figure the odds of one of these two men winning with a flush

There are 1,712,304 possible boards. 1,637,884 result in a tie. 74,420 of them result in one of them winning. There is a winner 4.34% of the time which is a probability of approximately 1 in 25 or 24:1 against.

So this isn't an incredibly bad beat even for poker, this scenario has played out countless times, and I bet it happened at other times in this tournament (if we count more than just Aces v Aces). It just feels bad given the stakes, which are pretty high for most pro high stakes poker players. Imagine instead this. You hold KcKs and your opponent goes all-in so you call. He curses (hoping you'd fold) Pokerstove tells me KK against two random cards wins 82% of the time. However he turns over Kd2c. This is a 95% chance of winning. The flop comes: Jh 4d 8s. Your probability of winning is now 99.7%. Then comes 2s - it's OK you still have over 95% chance of winning, unless...2d.

Your video, Unbelievably Bad Beat at $1 Million Buy-in Poker Tournament, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Jim's advice to "follow your passion" is, IMHO, a terrible idea and is, perhaps dangerous and destructive career advice. But who could expect Jim to suggest anything else, seeing as how he became highly successful doing what he loves?

How many people do what they love, but never achieve success? Probably far more than those that do, except we never hear from them, because they're never selected to give commencement speeches at universities...

This is particularly pernicious in tournament-style fields where there are only a few big winners in comparison to the many many losers (e.g., media, athletics, startups, etc.).

These students would be better advised to "Do what contributes" (i.e., focus on the beneficial value created for other people and not just to satisfy one's own ego). People who contribute the most are often ultimately the most satisfied with what they do — and eventually find their way into fields with high remuneration (i.e., tend to make the most $).

Sadly, advising people to focus on others rather than oneself is not all that popular, especially given the endemic narcissism that characterizes modern culture (and, to be sure, much of what's behind Jim's own 'performances'). Focusing on what is best for others, rather than oneself, requires us to delay gratification (and short-term happiness) and perhaps even toil for many years to get the payoff of contributing value to the world.

Too often, people follow their passions into fields that are simply too competitive for where their skills are in those things. Instead, one should "do what contributes" — follow the thing that provides the most value to others.

In other words, "Follow your effort," "Don't do what you love, love what you do," and other suggestions to adopt a more complicated if more realistic calculus of doing what you're good at so long as it gives you some amount of satisfaction.

IMO, the best commencement speech of the season is the one delivered by Adm. William McRaven, the head of U.S. special operations, at the University of Texas, who said, "You can't follow anything until you've made your bed."

(in Unreal Tournament voice) HOLY SHIT!

I'll add to the comment above by saying that Ronnie O'Sullivan has the highest number of maximum breaks ("147s") in a tournament in the world, he has 12. considering the fact that he has played hundreds and hundred of matches, each consisting of 7-10 ish frames (the video shows one frame)= thousands of tournament frames, he has an extremely impressive 733 "century breaks" that is frames where he has scored more than 100 points.
Still, getting the maximum break he has only managed 12 times, which is the most anyone has ever managed.

This, coupled with the above description should give you an idea of how hard this is.

And then he goes and finishes a FINAL with it, a final, of course, brings out the nerves etc on a much higher scale than training in your basement does, which again makes it so much more difficult.