A player at this year’s PokerStars Caribbean Adventure set the new Guinness World Record for most hands of poker played in an 8-hour period of time. The player was Randy Lew, known online as nananoko, and over those 8 hours he played 23,493 hands. He played those hands on Poker Stars in a cordoned off table of his own at the casino hosting the PCA, surrounded by fellow PCA attendees.
In order for the record to count, according to Lew’s own self-imposed criteria, he had to have finished the 8 hours ahead, meaning he had to show a profit. Lucky for him he made it, but only by $7.65. Because he was playing on PokerStars, however, he also earned 22,784 FPPs for his effort. Those points can be used to enter online tournaments at the site or purchase gear at the PokerStars Store.
At one point, a few hands before the 8-hour clock was up, Lew closed down most of the tables he’d been playing–for most of the contest, he was multi-tabling at 40 tables at once–and focused on a single table, where he received pocket Aces. An observer shouted out for him not to play the hand as it was a three-way hand and he was so close to losing the small profit he had edged out. But he stayed in and luck was with him, all the way to Guinness Book of World Records.
Lew was in between days of play in the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure main event, which he returned to the following day. As a point of comparison, whoever would go on to win the $2 million grand prize in that event wouldn’t have played more than 10% of the number of hands Lew played to claim his record.