Over the weekend, the Guinness World Record for Longest Continuous Poker Tournament was broken during the Asian Poker Tour Resorts World Manila event in the Philippines.

Called the Iron Man Poker Challenge Main Event, the tournament had a pretty basic set of rules. The $700 buy-in event would play out like a normal tournament except for the fact that it would run until there was only one man left standing; no deals were allowed. To satisfy the criteria for establishing a new Guinness record, cameras were trained on the tournament area for the entire event and officials from the Philippines gaming authority and other independent auditors were in place to witness the action on the tables.

A total of 115 players took their shot at this arduous task knowing the challenge they were facing. The record, prior to this attempt, was set at Delaware Park in August 2012, when 192 players battled it out for over 36 hours before Peter Konas emerged as the champion. The players in the APT attempt seemed to be up for the challenge, however, as it took nearly 18 hours before the field was cut down to 48 runners.

Twelve hours later, the money bubble burst, but the 18 players remaining still had a long road ahead of them before they reached the final table. Surprisingly, the task of working down to ten players went rather quickly, with only two-and-a-half hours used to knock off eight players. Four hours short of the world record, the final ten went to battle in what proved to be an extremely long final table.

By hour #35, the group of ten had become five: Damon Shulenberger, Sandro Simon, Lim Dae Hoon, Choi Byung Kyoo, and Florencio Campomanes. Those five were still on the felt when the clock officially passed the Delaware Park record, but the battle continued. Campomanes fell during the 38th hour of play, Hoon was eliminated in the 42nd hour, and Simon dropped in the 45th hour, setting a heads-up showdown between Shulenberger and Kyoo.

It took another four hours before the tournament concluded. Once Shulenberger outlasted Kyoo on the final hand, the clock read the official time of 48 hours, 55 minutes, and 58.5 seconds.

What was the reward to Shulenberger for his two days of work? An $18,240 first place prize, while Kyoo took down $10,670 for his runner-up finish. Shulenberger joked in his post-tournament interview, “I don’t think I’ll play poker again for at least a month.”

Shulenberger explained himself a little further as the interview went on. “I am mostly a casual player,” he stated to the APT reporting crew. “Where some people like to play all [day and night], I’ve always maintained a commitment to sleeping at least by 2-3AM. I never did an all-nighter like some of my friends.” At nearly 49 hours, it will be difficult for another Iron Man tournament to snap the record set at the APT.

The first ever Iron Man event appears to have been devised by tournament director Matt Savage (pictured) for the 2009 Hold’em Series at the Commerce Casino in Los Angeles. That tournament came as a result of players complaining about the number of breaks during an event. Thus, Savage gave the players what they wanted and devised the Iron Man concept, running it as part of other Commerce schedules since then.

With the success of the tournaments in California and Delaware and a new World Record in Manila, do you want to see the Iron Man become a staple of tournament poker schedules?

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