APT Ironman Challenge Aims To Beat 36.5 Hour Continuous Tourney Record
November 17, 2013 3:02 pmOn December 11th, the Resorts World Manila Casino in the Philipines will be aiming to beat the Guinness World Record for the Longest Continuous Poker Tournament, otherwise known as the “Ironman Challenge”.
The current world record was set last year at the Delaware Park poker room, where Czech Republic’s Peter Konas lasted 36 hours, 34 minutes and 41 seconds to best the 192 player field and scoop the $27,160 first place prize. Before then, US player Hieu Tran was the record holder having in 2011 outlasted a field of 376 players over 31 hours and 58 minutes to collect the $43,761 first place prize. After claiming the Ironman title at the time, Hieu Tran commented:
“I’m going to sleep. There were times during the hands when all I thought about is if I could use the bathroom.”
This time around, the US$700 buy-in Ironman Challenge will be limited to just 250 entrants, with all competitors then having to endure long hours of play without any official breaks until a champion is crowned. Of course the participants can schedule their own comfort breaks or even take a nap if they so desired, but their stack will still continue to be blinded off during that time.
In order to ensure a long, continuous tournament, each player will initially receive a 50,000 chip stack, with the first ten levels lasting 60 minutes each, with the second ten levels lasting 90 minutes each, before finally reaching two-hour levels until the end of the competition.
Interestingly, outside of tournaments the record for the longest continuous poker session was held by Phil Laak before being extended by five hours to 120 hours and 20 minutes by U.K. poker player Barry Denson last year. Not surprisingly, when pushing forward the limits of human endurance, a whole range of remarkable side effects have been noticed and when Laak played at the Bellagio in Las Vegas for 115 hours, after 92 hours he recalled:
“I thought I was in a foreign land and not in Las Vegas. None of it made sense. I kept giving the cards back to the dealer like I was folding. I didn’t know where I was or what I was doing. My nutritionist told me to eat yams to get my brain fed and back on track.”