Back in January 2009, young poker phenom Tom “durrrr” Dwan issued a six-figure challenge to anyone who had the confidence to take him on head-to-head on the virtual poker tables. The Durrrr Challenge created a ton of buzz at the beginning of that year, but two years later, what excited many in the poker community has lost a bit of its luster.
Let’s first go over what the Durrrr Challenge is. Dwan will put up $1.5 million against anybody in the world, except for his friend Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond, in four simultaneous heads-up cash games on Full Tilt Poker. The opponent need only put up $500,000 in addition to the regular buy-ins.
The games will be either No Limit Hold’em or Pot Limit Omaha at minimum stakes of $200/$400. After 50,000 hands, the player who is ahead wins the other player’s stake plus whatever he records at the tables. So, if Dwan ends up even a single dollar ahead, he pockets his profit plus $500,000 from his opponent. If the challenger wins, he gets his profits plus Dwan’s $1.5 million.
It all sounded very exciting, especially when it was announced that Full Tilt’s Patrik Antonius was going to be Dwan’s first challenger, to be followed at some point by the already immortal Phil Ivey. But the aspect of the challenge that was supposed to show that it was a true test of skill – the 50,000 hands – has been a stumbling block.
The contest with Antonius began in February 2009 and now, over two years later, has yet to conclude. In fact, the two haven’t played any hands against each other since August. At around that time, Dwan started a second challenge against Dan “jungleman12” Cates. This competition is currently active, but the hands are still few and far between.
The pace of the challenges has gotten the online poker community antsy. On TwoPlusTwo, forum members discussed the state of the Durrrr Challenge, with the primary question being whether or not Dwan should put a hold on accepting any more challengers. One forum poster put simply said, “He should start finishing challenges.”
One person used a little word play: “Durrrr is challenged when it comes to challenges.” Another poster went the sarcastic route: “He should take on even longer challenges with more players and not finish those either.”
Overall, people are frustrated that an event they were very excited to rail has sputtered and doesn’t really look like it will ever finish. One poster was more resigned, writing, “From a railbird standpoint, I’d love to see the challenges from start to finish. But in the end, it’s Durrrr, PA, and Jungle’s money. If they don’t have a problem with the challenge going on forever, I don’t think that we have much say how they spend their monies.”
As already mentioned, there have been no hands played between Dwan and Antonius since August. The two have run through 39,436 hands of the 50,000 required for completion and have wagered over $342 million combined. Currently, Dwan is up just over $2 million. There have been unconfirmed rumors that he allowed Antonius some sort of cash buyout because of the apparent inevitability of the his huge win, which would explain why it has been so long since any hands have been played.
“durrrr” and “jungleman12” most recently played on Tuesday. Overall, Cates is winning, having taken over $940,000 from Dwan through just 17,456 total hands.
