120 Hours of Play – Phil Laak’s Record Broken

British Barry Denson has broken Phil Laak’s poker endurance record, playing 120 hours and 20 minutes in a row and earning £850 in profits, which he will give to charity.

Barry Denson

On 2 June, 2010, during the annual World Series of Poker, WSOP and WPT champion Phil Laak started his poker session to break the Guinness World Record of poker endurance, set by Paul ‘The Marbella Kid’ Zimbler at 74 hours, playing heads-up during the 2009 WSOPE. ‘The Unabomber’ aimed at 80 hours to play in the Bellagio in Las Vegas.

The committee to oversee the attempt allowed 5 minutes breaks in every hour, although Laak was allowed to accumulate his breaks and take 30 minutes after 6 hours of continuous play. Once Laak reached 80 hours, he kept playing and set his target at 90 hours. When he achieved that, too, he moved on to reach 100. Finally, he set the Guinness World Record at an amazing 115 hours and gained $6,766 in profits.

A British ex-soldier, Barry Denson has recently decided to break Laak’s record and sat down to realize his goal in July in the G Casino in Manchester, also oversaw by the Guinness World Records committee. Denson eventually played 120 hours and 20 minutes for a profit of £850.

“I prepared for the heat by gradually shortening my sleep over the period of five weeks until I was running on less than three hours sleep a night and this did help tremendously. I expected to experience side effects. Phil Laak spoke after his record of experiencing visual hallucinations but my effect was slightly different in that I experienced aural hallucination. At one stage I was sure that I could hear small children laughing and playing around the slots, which were quite close to the table,” Denson said.

Denson offered his winnings for the Help For Heroes charity.