Bloggers / Matthew Pitt / 24 October 2008 / Leave a comment

When John Juanda was crowned the 2008 World Series of Poker Europe Champion, the main talking point was the time the final table took to complete. At 22-hours, it was the longest final table in WSOP history, but during the previous month, an amateur player set a world record that made the WSOPE final table time pale into insignificance.

Dave 'Alfa' Cain set out to raise money for two charities whilst simultaneously setting a new world record for the length of time someone had played poker continuously. To break the record of American Larry Olmstad, he would have to play non-stop for 72 hours and two minutes, a record set on 10-13 June, 2004.

Cain decided to play heads-up poker, for real money, at the Library Bar in the centre of Lincoln University's campus with all the money he won going to his two causes, St Barnabas and Louth and District Hospice. His opponents, who had travelled far and wide to play him, also offered to donate a percentage or all of the money they won from him to the charities also.

Everything was going well until the middle of the third day of play when Cain started to suffer the effects of sleep deprivation and mental exhaustion. "I was fine one minute then all of a sudden I didn't know where I was or what I was there for," he explained on his website. He went on to say that medical staff were worried about his health as his pulse dropped from a normal 75-80 beats per minute to 55-60 beat per minute.

Eventually, Cain ended the challenge at around 2230 on the Wednesday, over 74 hours after he first started playing, meaning that he was a new world record holder! He had planned to play 100 hours but his health rapidly deteriorating, he was advised to stop.

After a lot of sleep and rest, Cain has fully recovered and is awaiting confirmation from the Guinness Book of Records that he did indeed set a new world record.