What’s the longest session you’ve ever pulled at the poker table?
The Guinness World Record for the longest live session was held for many years by Phil Laak after the man known as ‘The Unabomber’ played for 115 hours. During the marathon game Laak was able to take a 5-minute break every hour, as well as to ‘bank’ unused breaks for slightly longer rests.
Laak’s record stood for over a decade, until Zach Gensler topped it in 2021 with a 124-hour session at Resorts World. Gensler played in public, on video, and regularly tweeted during his record attempt, yet for some reason doesn’t seem to have been recognized yet by the official keepers of the world record.
That is likely to be more to do with the record-keepers than the record-setter as, for example, according to the official Guinness World Records site, the current official record for ‘most entrants in a WSOP Main Event’ is deemed to be the 6,494 entrants in 2009 — a number that was surpassed twice before 2009 and has been bettered a dozen times since.
But while the accuracy of some world records may be a little shaky, there’s no doubt as to the holder of the current record for the longest online poker session. Set in 2023, the record belongs to poker pro Sergio Garcia, who played for 49 hours straight to get his name in the record books.
If all goes to plan, Garcia’s record will fall this week.
‘Poker is all about endurance, discipline, and focus’
The man with his eyes on the prize is Nicholas Rascona of the USA, a poker player, musician, model and actor with various TV credits to his name.
Rascona will be playing on ACR Poker, with the site backing his attempt by providing him with some extra funds to play with as well as tickets to play $109 events in the Online Super Series XL, a $50M GTD tournament series running through to September 30.
While the standing online record of 49 hours is less than half that of the live record, it must be remembered that online poker moves much faster than the live game. Far more hands are played per hour, allowing much less time to rest and recover when not in a hand.
Add in the social factor — live poker is played in public with people to talk to, while online is usually played alone in a quiet room at home — and the different nature of the challenges becomes even more apparent.
Starting at 9am ET on Sunday, September 14, Rascona will be playing and streaming his action, focusing largely on micro-stakes tournaments but with some of the aforementioned bigger OSS XL tourneys thrown in.
To claim the record for his own, Rascona will need to make it past 10am on Tuesday, September 16. He may just need to look into brewing the world’s biggest cup of coffee while he’s at it.
You can follow along during the record attempt on Twitch, and if you happen to run into him at the tables on ACR Poker late on Monday evening… merry Christmas. He might not be playing his A-game by then, but if his plan comes off he’ll have a feather in his cap that few can match: A genuine Guinness World Record.
“I’m rooting for Nicholas as he attempts this Guinness World Record,” said ACR Poker ambassador Chris Moneymaker, announcing the upcoming session. “Poker is all about endurance, discipline, and focus, and he’s putting all three to the test. Play safe and enjoy the game.”
Rascona’s world record attempt will be streamed live on Twitch from 9am ET on Sunday, September 14.
What’s the longest session you’ve ever played? Do you think you could you break the record? Let us know in the comments.
