Tom Dwan Million Dollar Heads up challenge
Posted by admin on February 26th, 2009The ‘durrrr’ challange. Over the past month or two, the ‘durrrr challenge’ is the talk of the land. All the talk began when Tom ‘durrrr’ Dwan issued an open challenge to anyone in the world excluding Phil Galfond. The reasoning behind Galfond being left out has been rumored as the two being too good of friends, Dwan simply not thinking he has an edge over Galfond, or the possibility that Galfond has gone in on the financial backing of Dwan in the challenge. The specifics included Dwan agreeing to play 50,000 hands of heads up poker at Pot Limit Omaha or No Limit Hold Em. The trick was that the two had to play four table at the same time, one of Dwan’s biggest advantages. The minimum stakes are $200/$400,but the biggest lure is still to come. Dwan, in order to get action, has offered 3:1 to his opponents, meaning that if he beats his opponent by even $1 after 50k hands, he will win an additional $500,000. However, if he loses even $1 to an opponent, he will pay them $1.5 million. In a quote on twoplustwo internet forums, Dwan said the following breaking down the basics of his challenge.
see stats here:
durrrr challenge stats tracker
“1) 200-400min (nl/plo obv)
2) can change tables anytime eff stacks are >250bb
3) have to reload when stacks are <75bb
4) $$ won in the challenge is kept obv (if i win 750k in poker, i get that PLUS your 500k- if i lose 750k in poker you get 2.25m total).
5) same stakes the whole time
6) not open to phil galfond”
The intrigue to poker fans is obvious. Many have railed the current big games for months, and no one expected the games to get this exciting. Not only will four big tables be going off, but a possible $1.5 million could be on the line. Early names were being thrown around such as Phil Ivey, David Benyamine, Ilari ‘Ziigmund’ Sahamies, Patrik Antonius, or either of the Dang brothers. Rumors immediately ran around that David Benyamine had accepted the challenge, however, the internet fans had no confirmation of this. Eyes were out looking for the game to start but no one was sure if this would ever happen, when the poker world received a shock. On popular poker website ‘PokerRoad,’ Barry Greenstein recorded a phone call with Phil Ivey in which Ivey lets the world know he has accepted Dwan’s challenge, as had Benyamine. So not only had the world confirmed that the challenge would take place, but it was going to happen twice. The internet world began to buzz about the possibilities of what would happen. In the interview with PokerRoad, Ivey discussed how he didn’t think any match would get finished. “Durrrr is playing DB first and he figures one of them will lose 2-3 million and someone will have to quit and pay out.” Interesting that Dwan doesn’t even think his own challenge will get finished. When Ivey was asked why he never posted any challenge such as this, he simple responded by saying he doesn’t need to, that everyone knows he will play them anywhere, any game, at any time. But that wasn’t it.
In an interview with PokerNews, Patrik Antonius was asked what he thought about the Dwan Challenge. Antonius responded with something along the lines of it being exciting and he couldn’t wait to play Dwan. This threw the world out of sync. The internet blew up with the fact that the Finnish pro would also be playing Dwan. Antonius, in an interview with CardPlayer, Antonius mentioned many interesting things pertaining to the challenge. He claimed he wanted first shot at Dwan, but thought he may come third. He also said he would chose PLO as his preferred game, since it’s the ame he feels he has the most experience in. Antonius also talked about how he doesn’t think he will sell a piece of himself, a very gutsy move as swings in a game such as this will certainly end up in the multiple of millions of dollars. It was a waiting game from there. All the talk was that Benyamine would be first to take on the young American pro, but he had still yet to comment on the situation. February 18th saw that all end when the challenge began. However, not against Benyamine as many expected. However, it was Tom Dwan and Antonius who began duking it out at $200/$400 PLO. They played for a few days, and finished, as of this writing, 3,860 hands. In the first ~5% of the challenge, Dwan is up $113,316.50. In such a small sample of hands, it is surprising in how much money has changed hands. All we can do from here is stay tuned, and rail the history as it happens to see where this one of a kind challenge will take us.
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