Jun
15
by Taylor Kent
It’s been better than a week now since our man Phil Laak broke the world record for the longest continuous poker session. Phil’s record may not stand up forever, but memories of his mammoth marathon session are certain to live on for many years with two poker players in particular: Darrel and Gytis, the two men who won contests to travel to Bellagio and take part in Phil’s record attempt.
Both Darrel and Gytis stayed at Bellagio and got the opportunity to play in the game with Phil. Darrel, from Washington, wrote a poem to become the first contest winner - you can check it out here. He had actually played with Phil one time before - a fact he referenced in his contest-winning verse - so he was comfortable at the table with the man of the hour.
Phil and Darrel at Bellagio during Phil's record-breaking session
Meanwhile Gytis, from Lithuania, won an 18-man freeroll tournament for the biggest trip of his life. The 26-hour journey from Vilnius to Las Vegas gave him his first opportunity to visit the United States, which would have been exciting enough on its own. But it also turns out that Phil is one of his favorite poker players.
“I like his style, how he plays and how he entertains the table,” Gytis said of Phil. “It’s fun to watch. He’s entertaining at every table on High Stakes Poker, Poker after Dark and the National Heads-Up Championship.”
Gytis and Phil at the 34-hour mark.
He said his time at the tables with Phil was “the most epic moment of my trip.” Normally Gytis plays $1/$2 no-limit hold’em, so Phil agreed to stake him for 90% so that he would be able to play as if it were his normal game. “In a $1/$2 game you play ABC, but unfortunately it was much harder to beat those regulars with huge chip towers who make fancy plays. But it felt amazing sitting there next to Phil all the cameras pointed at me and playing the highest stakes in my life. It was an awesome experience.”
Just as impressive as the Bellagio experience was the city of Las Vegas itself. “Vegas is awesome,” Gytis told me. “You see it on TV, in videos, but you have to be here yourself. When the plane was landing it was nighttime and I saw all the lights, it was so crazy! And then I went out of the airport, and the air - you feel so alive. You have to come here to feel it.”
Between the spectacle of the city, the atmosphere at Bellagio and historic moments at the table with Phil Laak, it’s a sure bet that neither Gytis nor Darrel will forget their time in Las Vegas during Phil’s record-breaking session.