When the durrrr challenge was announced it sparked a huge amount of excitement both in those who were going to be involved personally and in the fans that would get to watch the cards and the swings as pros battled it out for literally millions of dollars. The first challenge against Finnish pro Patrik Antonius has come as a disappointment to many but hopes for excitement were relit recently when Daniel “jungleman12” Cates announced he would accept the challenge. So far, it’s shaping up to be everything a poker spectator could wish for.
The durrrr challenge is simple. The challenge is for 50,000 hands of online heads-up play and may be taken by anyone in the world except for Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond. The stakes must be at least $200/$400, at least four tables must be played simultaneously and the game can be either Pot Limit Omaha or No Limit Hold’Em. At the end of the 50,000 hands if Tom “durrrr” Dwan is up in money then he receives an additional $500,000. If, however, the challenger is up by so much as a dollar, he will receive $1.5 Million from Dwan.
With that sort of action railbirds were expecting the ride of their lives, and things seemed like they were going to get real when Patrik Anotonius accepted the challenge. Sadly, it’s proven to be pretty disappointing thus far with sessions being short, not to mention few and extremely far between. The two have been battling it out for well over a year and have still not even reached the 40,000 hand mark. And, to be blunt, it’s been rather one-sided with durrrr currently up over $2 Million and never having been down more than a few hundred thousand.
Daniel “jungleman12” Cates appears to be a different story, however. On paper the two seem pretty evenly matched, although once the match was booked durrrr was quick to describe jungleman12 as “cute” for thinking he will “ever have an edge.” The two haven’t played much in the past, but in a recent interview with the Full Tilt Poker blog, durrrr commented, “I have some idea how he plays, hopefully I’ll have a better idea in a little bit and a little more money too.”
The challenge finally got underway, and things are looking great for the railbirds, although not for durrrr himself. While he seemed to have the upper hand after their first two hour session, they reconvened and played for a further seven hours that same day, at the end of which durrrr was down over half a million dollars. As they’re playing NLHE on six tables and are both seasoned online pros things are going a lot quicker and the swings seem to be a lot bigger than in the challenge against Antonius. On that first day they completed more than 10% of the challenge, and look set to play quite frequently.
Indeed, they played a further thousand hands this Monday with Cates once again coming out on top. He increased his lead to $692,000 before the two called it quits, and so it’s going to be a rocky road for durrrr to pull the match back into his favor. That said, they’re only 14% of their way through the 50,000 hands. Poker at these stakes is very high variance and, of course, if anybody can pull back from disaster it’s Tom “durrrr” Dwan. They’re a long way from any talk of buying out yet, and there’s still well over 40,000 hands of the hottest poker around to be played.
We’re finally seeing the action we hoped for when durrrr announced the challenge so many months ago, and it’s awesome to see such great poker being played. You can watch them play live on Full Tilt Poker, and I suggest you get in quick as the two show no signs of slowing down and so it could all be over very soon! If you happen to blink and miss it, we’ll be sure to keep you updated here on FlopTurnRiver so keep stopping by for the latest news from the tables.