Hieu Tran Wins $43,761 In 32 Hour Poker Marathon
August 25, 2011 10:29 amUS player Hieu Tran has become the new Iron Man of poker tournaments, after outlasting a field of 376 players over 31 hours and 58 minutes of continuous play to earn the title, and collect the $43,761 first place prize.
The $540 buy-in tournament was held at the Delaware Park Casino and aimed to go into the Guinness Book of World Records in the newly set up category for the longest live continuous poker tournament.
The record has a reserve benchmark set at 36 hours, and despite the Delaware tournament falling a few hours short of a place in the Guinness Record Book, it is still acknowledged as the Longest “Documented” Continuous Poker Tournament ever held.
Delaware Park’s Iron Man Poker Challenge got underway on Saturday, August 20th, at 12pm eventually coming to a conclusion on Sunday at 7:58pm.
After 26 hours and 30 minutes into the competition, Donald Delaney, 32, from New Jersey was eliminated in 4th place for $12,400 and commented:
“I’m going to sleep. There were times during the hands when all I thought about is if I could use the bathroom.”
Players, of course, were allowed to use the bathroom as required but at the same time faced missing hands or being blinded away.
After, Warren Wiggens was eliminated in 3rd place ($17,780), just John Barber and Hieu Tran remained, with Barber then pushing his remaining chips holding Ah-9c into Tran’s Jh-10h. With the board falling Kc-Qh-6d-8c-9s Barber collected $26,552, while Hieu Tran became the last man standing and received $43,761 for his marathon effort.
Summing up Hieu Tran’s achievement, one TwoPlusTwo poster called ‘layemdown’ commented via the forum:
“Well, it won’t go in the book of world records, but hu is certainly the Ironman of poker having won the longest continuist poker “live” MT tournament ever played without breaks.”