Poker player Randy Lew has set a new Guinness World Record for playing the most hands of poker in an 8-hour time frame of any player ever.
Besides all the other excitement inherent with the Poker Stars Caribbean Adventure, a participating player at the event just set a world record to boot. The player was Randy “Nanonoko” Lew who played more hands of poker over the course of an 8-hour period than any other poker player in history.
Lew played 23,493 hands in that record setting period. Interestingly, while Lew was attending the PCA, he actually broke the record in online poker, not live poker, playing at PokerStars.com.
Setting the new world record was a close call to say the least, as one of the requirements for the record to hold was that Lew had to come out ahead at the end of those hands, a qualification that he just barely made by exactly $7.65.
Now it can’t be said that Lew “broke” the world record for most hands played as that record had not yet been set, making him the first player to set this record. He had spoken about setting a new world record in poker at this year’s PCA, though he hadn’t decided on most hands played until close to event time. It was his own declaration that he would have to come out ahead for the record to count for anything, as it would be easy to just fold every hand to get there. At one point during the nailbiting 8-hour stretch, he was down by $1,200.