Another 348 hands of the Tom Dwan Million Dollar Challenge played out on Tuesday in its first action since January. Many in the community were growing tired of the second incarnation of the so-called Durrrr Challenge between Tom “durrrr” Dwan and Dan “jungleman12” Cates, but the battle waged on and the latter extended his lead to $941,000. The challenge can be found exclusively at Full Tilt Poker.
A total of 17,456 hands have been played, which is one-third of the way through the 50,000 required for completion. Two brief sessions were played on Tuesday, the second of which saw Cates pull ahead by $143,000 in the challenge over the course of 110 hands. In the end, Cates boosted his lead by $122,000 after Dwan had come out ahead in the first 250 hands.
Despite its restlessness, the poker community was quite mute about Tuesday’s session, perhaps due to its brevity. In one hand during the session, Dwan raised to $1,200 pre-flop and Cates 3bet to $4,000. Dwan called and the flop came 8-9-6 with two diamonds and Cates, despite 3betting before the flop, just checked.
Dwan bet $4,800 and Cates check-raised to $10,800. Dwan responded by moving all-in for nearly $50,000 and Cates called all-in to set up a pot worth $80,000. We’ll give you a second to guess what each person had.
Okay, we’re back! Dwan tabled pocket sevens for a pair and an open-ended straight draw, while Cates tabled K-J of diamonds for two overcards and a flush draw for a virtual coin flip.
The board was run twice and two $40,000 pots were up for grabs. The first board came 8h-9s, shipping half of the pot to Cates, who held two pair, nines and eights, with a king kicker. The second board was also favorable to Cates, who hit the king of hearts on the river to make a pair of cowboys. Cates raked in $80,000, which helped boost his lead by another $122,000.
On Twitter, Dwan hinted that we might soon see even more play in the second running of the Durrrr Challenge. In response to a poster who asked about his heads-up match with Cates, Dwan admitted, “Been rly busy. Completely my fault it’s taken so long and I feel bad. Done soon.”
The match between Dwan and Cates kicked off last August amid much fanfare. “Durrrr” had expressed his desire to wrap up the 50,000 hands against Cates by the start of the World Series of Poker Europe festivities in mid-September. Needless to say, that didn’t happen. Seven months after the start of the challenge, we sit at just 17,000 hands played out of the requisite 50,000.
On the mini-session held yesterday, Cates commented via Twitter, “Durrrr Challenge in 5…4…” Then, he lamented, “Played for 10 mins or so, Durrrr says he will brb, but has disappeared? gg?” Thirty minutes later, Dwan had logged back into Full Tilt Poker and the session was completed.
Visit our sister site, DurrrrChallenge.com, for complete recaps of the match. Make sure to sign up for Full Tilt Poker to Challenge Durrrr and win up to $1.5 million.
