It takes skill to win in the world of sport. Sometimes, when the competition is particularly tough, it also takes extraordinary patience and stamina. Baseball Most baseball games last nine innings, but if the score is tied at that point they can theoretically go on forever. On May 8, 1984, the conditions were right for the Chicago White Sox and Milwaukee Brewers to make a run at infinity. The rivals played 25 innings that day over eight hours and six minutes. In all, 14 pitchers and 44 position players were used between the two team. Chicago eventually won the game, 7-6. Tennis The tiebreaker was first adopted in modern tennis in the 1970s. Before then sets were like baseball games: they could theoretically go forever if no player ever pulled ahead by two games. Thats still the case in the final set of matches played at Wimbledon, the most prestigious tournament in all of tennis, where in 2010 John Isner beat Nicolas Mahut after 11 hours and five minutes of tennis over the course of three days. Isners final winning score was 6-4, 3-6, 6-7, 7-6, 70-68. The score was so unprecedented that the scoreboard failed after the final set reached 47-47 and had to be reprogrammed to finish the match. Chess Rule changes in competitive chess have tried to speed up long games over the years. In 1989, when Ivan Nikolic and Goran Arsovic met in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, the rules in play allowed players in certain late-game scenarios up to 100 moves to find a way to win. Nikolic and Asrovic found themselves in just such a spot, and after 20 hours and 15 minutes their match was declared a draw. Poker Sometimes a high-stakes poker tournaments final table goes quickly, but most last somewhere between two and five hours. At the 2008 WSOP Europe Main Event it took 22 hours for John Juanda to overcome his eight opponents. Play against his final opponent at the table, Stanislav Alekhin, took seven hours alone. Juanda might have had to work longer than any of the other winners on this list to outlast his opponent, but he did have one advantage. Unlike them he didnt have to go through years of training and selection just to have the chance to play. Any poker player with enough money is welcome at the WSOP, and
hundreds qualify annually for the biggest tournaments.