After 6 Days Continuous Play, Austrians Smash World Poker Endurance Record

Poor old Phil Laak! June hasn’t even passed and the poker endurance record of 115 hours continuous play he set earlier this month, and which he said, “may well stand for five years, maybe forever,” has already been broken.
The new record currently stands at 127 hours and rising, as the team of Austrian amateur poker players, known as ‘The Glorious Seven,’ continue their epic game at the Kufsteinerhof Hotel in Kufstein, Tirol, Austria.
Stephan Reischl, Nuran Karasu, Jens Tölle, Max Krückl, Julia Doetsch, Erich Grünwald, Thomas Wagermeier, and Rudolf Teichmann originally set their sights on reaching 135 hours before calling it a day, or six!!
The Guinness book of Records allows a 5 minute break every hour in which a player may do whatever he likes with, or simply bank forward for a longer break later. Phil Laak, for instance, managed to squeeze in a 30 minute nap during his incredible record.
Ahead of their attempt, the group stated; “Because nobody would voluntarily give up, the physical health of the participants would be observed by the team doctor and the further participation of any single participant would be left up to him (the doctor). As far as the psychological strain is concerned, the judgment was left up to the individual players. It was soon clear that no player would give up of his own free will.”
The poker record started on Saturday, June 19th at 9:00 a.m. local time with the team of seven saying they were ready for the  “bodily, spiritual, and emotional challenge” which lay ahead.
First to exit was Wagermeier after 72 hours, followed by Doetsch after 107 hours of play. Grünwald and Teichmann were content to quit after tying Laak’s record of 115 hours, leaving Reischl, Karasu and Tölle to boldly go where no poker player has gone before.
Well done and good luck to the plucky trio, and for those of you wondering how they are holding up and what effects the extreme sleep deprivation is having on them, a German press release stated:
“They find themselves in stable psychological and physical health despite emotional heights and depths including fits of laughter, depression, all the way to hallucinations.”