Phil Laak’s record goes into history

The poker endurance record of 115 hours of continuous play, set by Phil Laak, was broken this week by Barry Denson, a Brit former part-time soldier who earlier this year vowed to beat it. He thereby set a new record of 120 hours and 20 minutes, which he played at the G Casino in Manchester last week and earned GBP 850 for the Help for Heroes war charity in the process.

In a comment on his record, Denson said: quot;I prepared for the feat by gradually shortening my sleep over a period of a few weeks until I was running on less than three hours sleep a night, and this did help tremendously.

quot;I expected to experience side effects. Phil Laak spoke after his record of experiencing visual hallucinations but my experience was slightly different in that I experienced aural hallucination. At one stage I was sure that I could hear small children laughing and playing around the slots which were quite close to the table.quot;

He also added that the process of verification of the record by the Guinness Book of Records is already underway.