World Record Poker Feats Ripe to FallNew Records Are Made as the Sport Continues to Grow |
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It’s a strange attraction that humans have to the setting of world records. No matter how inane, stupid or ridiculous something is, someone somewhere wants to be the best at it. Although being part of the largest space shuttle crew may be hard to break, there are plenty others to choose from and poker is one way to be part of it. 
PokerStars made world history by hosting the largest poker tournament ever on Dec. 28, when an event marketed as a world record breaker was held. The $11 event was capped at 35,000 players. The world’s largest poker site first broke the record in 2007 when it held a tournament marketed the same way. That day, the tournament was capped at 20,000 players.
The only thing holding this record back seems to be the server size and speed of the poker sites. Even PokerStars, which is accustomed to hosting more than 100,000 players at a time, experienced site slow-downs throughout the day. But the site also broke its site traffic record that day. At its peak, 250,540 players were playing poker at once on PokerStars.
As far as live tournaments, the 2006 World Series of Poker’s main event destroyed the record for most players at a live tournament and gave the world a glimpse of how big the $10,000 main event’s tournament field could be if the status of online poker in the United States was crystal clear. That event attracted 8,773 players.
The massive playing field was boosted with players who qualified online and took place before the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) was passed. This record will most likely eventually be broken, but it could be in a tournament with a much less expensive buy-in, or possibly in Europe, where countries embrace this industry.
The 2006 WSOP was also remarkable for the massively large top prize of $12 million. That record will be hard to beat.
Everyone started with five pieces of clothing supplied by Paddy Power Poker and the room soon filled with mostly naked men (a few brave women did play). Even the winner, a 32 year-old man, went buff after he outlasted his opponents as cameras from major news networks whirled on.
And again in 2006, and again in London, 24 players got together to break the Guinness World Record for longest poker game. According to Guinness, the record for consecutive play was 42 hours. These blokes broke it by playing 43.5 hours.
But that record is most likely not the most accurate one that Guinness has collected. Guinness is surely not made aware of any of the marathon poker sessions that go on around the world every week and most of the top pros have stories about playing crazy amount of hours at once. Even my former neighbor and long-time poker player Lee said he played three days straight, so take this one with a grain of salt.
The longest final table in history took place in October at the 2008 WSOP main event. Technically, this tournament could
also be named the longest one ever since it started on July 3, and a winner wasn’t declared until Nov. 10, a 117-day delay. The final table took 17 hours to play.
The World Poker Tour had the longest heads-up match in WPT’s history take place at the 2008 Foxwoods World Poker Final when Jonathan Little defeated Jonathan Jaffe in a heads-up match that took 170 hands. It took 105 hands to get to heads up and the chip lead changed nine times during the fight.
The longest WPT final table from start to finish took place at the 2008 Foxwoods Poker Classic when Erik Seidel survived an 11-hour game to emerge with the title. Remember, WPT events start their final tables with six players.
Some of these records will stand for decades, others will probably fall this year. There has be at least 200 people somewhere who would like to be part of the team to break the strip poker record. Somebody call Guinness.
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