Paul Zimbler’s record breaking poker session came to an end on Thursday 24th September after 74 hours, 20 minutes and 21 seconds of continous play. The charitable event took place at the Empire Casino while the World Series of Poker Europe was taking place and Zimbler explained:
“I did it to raise money for a good cause. It’s a very rare time that all these top players are in town and it’s great to be able to play them all for charity.”
An exhausted Zimbler had to be helped from the table after his final heads-up game against Mike Matusow and said:
“Thankfully I had a lot of support and I’m very happy I did it. I was very close to stopping right at the end. I wasn’t doing it for the world record and all that rubbish. It’s just a great thing to do good things for those who are less fortunate.”
England’s Paul Zimbler started his record breaking marathon Monday and the charitable event involved a series of heads-up matches with challengers each giving a minimum of £10 towards the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
“It was great practice,” Zimbler said. “I probably played nearly 200 games – some of them lasted an hour and a half, some of them 10 minutes or less. I played a hell of a lot of games and when you’re playing that many games, I don’t know how many hands you’re seeing, but it’s great experience.”
The official record showed Zimbler had played 183 matches and won 102 of them. Amongst the players who took him on and donated to the cause were Doyle Brunson, Annette Obrestad and Phil Hellmuth and along with a £5,000 donation from Betfair Poker, Zimbler was able to raise almost £35,000. Zimbler’s record session beat the previous record by 8 minutes and although now over, donations continue to pour in via the ‘JustGiving’ website and anyone interested in contributing to this charity can do so through the link.
“I did it man and we’re raising a lot of money,” Zimbler said. “We’re still going too. We’re hoping to get to £50,000.”
