At 2.36am on November 11, the curtain finally came down on the longest poker tournament in history. The 2008 WSOP Main Event started way back on July 3, when 6,844 hopefuls stumped up $ 10,000 for the chance to win poker’s biggest prize – the No-Limit Hold’em World Championship. This vast field was reduced to just nine players by July 14, at which point the tournament took an unprecedented 117- day break. Play resumed on November 9 and finally finished in the early hours of November 11 after a final table that lasted a record-breaking 15 hours and 39 minutes.

And that wasn’t the only record broken in a truly memorable final.