After a nearly two-month break, the Durrrr Challenge between Tom “durrrr” Dwan and Dan “JungleMan12” Cates returned on Friday. Two sessions were held, the first of which totaled 1,354 hands and saw Cates win $35,000. Then, an 80-minute session saw 769 hands played. During the second encounter, Dwan cut into Cates’ lead by $47,000. Cates now leads by $645,000 overall.
Three hands during the second session passed $80,000 and Dwan took down two of them, contributing to his late surge in the second installment of the Durrrr Challenge. The largest pot of the night clocked in at $88,000. In it, Cates raised to $800 before the flop and Dwan boosted the price of poker to $2,400. Then, Cates 4bet to $4,400 and Dwan made the call to see a flop of Q-5-2 with two spades.
Dwan checked the flop and Cates fired out a bet of $2,800. Dwan called to build a pot of $14,400 heading to the turn, which was a red seven. Dwan once again checked, letting Cates take control of the action, and Dwan’s challenger led out for $8,400. Dwan called and the river was the three of diamonds. Dwan checked for a third time and Cates pushed all-in for $28,000. Dwan called and flipped over 7-5 for two pair, sevens and fives, while Cates showed a bluff with K-6 for king-high.
As you might expect, posters on online poker forums like TwoPlusTwo were quite elated to see that the Durrrr Challenge had finally returned. On the 80-minute encounter last night, one TwoPlusTwo member wrote, “I think Durrrr isn’t adjusting well against JungleMan12 and is hoping shorter sessions will limit the damage. Every time he has played a long session, JungleMan12 has dominated him.”
Cates has won 5,967 of the 9,783 hands played so far for a brisk 61% success rate. To that end, one poster questioned Dwan’s potential lack of aggression: “Does it seem crazy to anyone else that JungleMan12 is winning so many more hands than Tom? I realize it’s not a big sample and that there’s variance at work, but the gap is gigantic. Especially for a player like Tom Dwan, who I always thought thrived on taking down more pots than his opponents. Doesn’t seem like a good sign for him that JungleMan12 is out-Durrrring Durrrr.”
When the challenge first began in late August, Dwan and Cates discussed the possibility of fulfilling the 50,000-hand challenge by the start of the 2010 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Europe in September. However, WSOP Europe, high-stakes cash games in Macau, and a considerable amount of travel by Dwan and Cates have limited the time for each player at the felts.
Cates had been at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City playing a tournament prior to Friday’s resumption of the Challenge. He then posted, “Durrrr Challenge now between me and @tom_dwan.” Prior to Atlantic City, other activities for Cates included seeing Vinny Favorito’s comedy show at the Flamingo in Las Vegas and traveling to Orlando and New Orleans. Dwan was last seen playing in nosebleed cash games in Macau along with players like Phil Ivey and Chau Giang.
Amazingly, Cates has won the four largest pots in the challenge against Dwan and six of the 10 largest overall. Three pots at the $200/$400 No Limit Hold’em tables have eclipsed $150,000 and eight have been larger than $125,000. Visit our sister site, DurrrrChallenge.com, for all of the latest news from the Tom Dwan Million Dollar Challenge.