Poker is one of the biggest and most popular games in the world.
You see different people from all walks of life playing poker at home with friends and families or at an online poker/casino to win big money and have fun doing it.
In the professional world though, playing online poker is all about earning big winnings when you play.
The pros still have fun but it is still in serious competition with each other with serious money on the line.
In the spirit of competition, like a poker tournament, records are made or broken. New heights are reached as players look to become better.
In this article, we will take a look at some of the records that have been set in poker history.
Largest online poker tournament event organized
This happened during lockdown.
According to PokerStars, the $18,603,200 prize pool in this week’s “Sunday Million” event was the largest in company history.
At the $215 buy-in event, about 61,000 participants joined to establish a record 93,016 entries.
Once the final four poker tournament participants decided to split $3.67 million in prize money, a player from Brazil with the screenname “AAAArthur” won the event. Following the agreement, “AAAArthur” defeated the other competitors, capturing the championship with a full house (twos over jacks) on the last hand.
“AAAArthur” took first place with $1,192,802, followed by “CrAzY sTeFaN” with $921,328, “Salonteskis” with $826,919, and “Caroline2963” with $786,873.
It’s the third-largest prize pool for an online poker game in history, trailing only two $20 million tournaments staged by Partypoker in 2018 and 2019. Nonetheless, the buy-ins for those events were substantially more ($5,300 and 10,300) than the “Sunday Million.
Longest continuous poker tournament
The Asian Poker Tour and Resorts World Manila Iron Man Poker Challenge (Philippines) hosted the longest continuous poker event, which lasted 48 hours, 55 minutes, and 58.5 seconds, from December 13 to 15, 2013, in Pasay, Philippines.
The entire prize pool was 71,400 USD. Damon Shulenberger of the United States won the main event, bringing home a share of US$ 18,240 as the first prize. This tournament is amongst the Guinness world records database.
Largest strip poker tournament
John Young, of Slough, England, defeated 194 other competitors in the Paddy Power World Strip Poker Championships on Saturday at London’s Café Royal to win £10,000, a specially commissioned Golden Fig Leaf trophy, and entrance into the Paddy Power Irish Open, where up to £2 million is on the line.
Besides being one of the largest strip poker tournaments in recent time, it is also the most iconic.
Moreover, Paddy Power offered to pay an additional £10,000 to the winner’s chosen charity, Cancer Research, once John, the last of the players to remove his clothing, revealed everything to the audience.
Each participant was given five pieces of clothes to spend for chips. As they ran out of chips, they cashed in their garments for more. Some even stripped down to their underwear and sat playing nude save for a hat.
Largest pot in a poker tournament
On May 15, 2000, the last hand of the 31st World Series of Poker tournament (WSOP) between eventual champion, Chris ‘Jesus’ Ferguson (USA) and T. J. Cloutier (Canada) at the Binion’s Horseshoe casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA yielded a record breaking $4.5 million (£3.1 million) pot.
Ferguson entered the Main Event final table having just won his first WSOP bracelet in a $2,500 Seven-Card Stud event.
He competed against Tom Franklin, James McManus, and Hasan Habib before defeating TJ Cloutier in a head-to-head match for the championship.
He outlasted 511 other opponents as well.
Most Players in an Online Poker room
The Guinness World Record for the most players in an online poker room at the same time is 307,016 who played on a total of 42,814 virtual tables at PokerStars.com on September 6, 2009. PokerStars.com has a number of GWRs for online poker.
PokerStars has remained one of if not the biggest and mpst reputable poker sites around.
Longest individual poker player marathon
Phil Laak owns the Guinness World Record for the longest poker marathon by a person, which he broke in June 2010 during a WSOP tournament at the Bellagio in Las Vegas.
This incredible achievement was observed by a live streaming audience of over 117,000 viewers.
Laak was permitted to take 5-minute breaks every hour for a shower (one was put up near the poker table) or to use the restroom during the almost five-day tournament.
He elected to ‘bank’ these breaks (resting for only 5 minutes every three hours) and then take a 30-minute nap with the rest (the only one during the 115 hours of playtime).
At the end of the tournament, Phil Laak won $6,766 for his immense effort. He donated half of his winnings to a children’s charity.
Largest entry into a World Series Of Poker tournament
On July 3, 2009, the Rio All Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, saw the most participants enter a World Series of Poker main event tournament.
6,494 poker players in total entered the tournament at the time.
Youngest World Series Of Poker winner
Cada became the youngest player in history to win the World Series of Poker Main Event in 2009.
The Michigan native, who was born on November 18, 1987, won the world’s most prestigious No-Limit Hold’em event only days before turning 22. Cada is still the champion nine years after his huge win.
The player outlasted a field of 6,494 tournament participants, battled and defeated Darvin Moon heads-up, and won $8,547,042.
Cada has won two additional gold bracelets since 2009, the most recent of which he received only a few weeks ago when he won the $3,000 No-Limit Hold’em Shootout.
Largest Cryptocurrency jackpot in Online Poker
Winning Poker Network – International Processing Services S.A. (Panama) in San José, Costa Rica, won the greatest cryptocurrency winning prize in an online poker event on July 24, 2019, for $1,050,559.50 USD (104.23 BITCOINS; GBP 843,872; € 940,231).
The VENOM competition lasted more than two days and was put together by more than 130 staff members.
The final table lasted 5 hours and 6 minutes and had 8 finalists: two from the United States, one from Canada, one from Brazil, one from Hungary, one from Latvia, one from Germany, and one from the Czech Republic.
The competition was won by “TheBigKid,” a Brazilian gamer.
Longest Online poker Marathon
Dutchman Martin Hummel completed the longest online poker marathon in two days, from April 2 to 4, 2021, in Utrecht, Netherlands.
Martin broadcast the entire endeavor live on his Twitch account.
He played in almost 40 No-Limit Texas Hold’em events, placing as high as 36th and as low as 1,944th.
He played cash games in between events on the internet platform PokerStars.
Martin witnessed the previous record holder’s attempt at this title and decided to give it a shot himself.
