New Poker Endurance Record
New Poker Endurance Record Last year we wrote about Paul Zimbler playing online poker for 72 hours straight, playing into delerium to set the world record for most consecutive hours played. Well, that record has been shattered by hours. Phil Laak decided that if he was going to break the record, he might as well really break itnot by seconds or minutes but by hours. In June of 2010 he played for a solid 115 hours. Like Zimbler, Laak used charity as an incentive to keep playing. Zimbler raised over £30,000 for charity when he played, and Laak pleged to donate 50% of his winnings to charity after his ironman online poker run. Laak was playing at the 10/20 stakes at the Bellagio and his reactions were strange to say the least. Updatiing those following him via Twitter, Laak wondered why he wasn’t “hallucinating yet.” Definitely odd considering that most people do everything they can to stay alert and aware when they’re playing poker. Upon the breaking of the record, several fans arrived to cheer him on to which Laak calmly stated, “There’s a new sicko in town.” Masochist is more like it. But he wasn’t finished. Originally planning on staying for only 80 hours (did I really just say “only”?), Laak kept it up past the 80 hour mark saying that 90 was the new 80. As his mental faculties began to take some serious decline from the lack of sleep, he did have quite the entertaining blog post around the 100 hour mark. “my team is becoming thinner as they must leave…must run solo op…yes I think I can…it is all good…the boat will be sinking and I will be running the bilge pumps…” I think he finally got his hallucinations. And in true online poker player fashion, called it a night/day at hour 115 and hit the sack. 12 hours of sleep later, he was back on the interwebs, this time tweeting, “Woke up- had 2 bowls of cereal, then as an afterthought a ham sandwich. Thinking about going to play 10/20 at the Bellagio.” While Laak only pledged half his winnings, which was about $3,000 to the charity, he ended up sending the whole 6k, along with donations from his supporters. The funds went to Camp Sunshine, a summer camp for children with life threatening illnesses.