On Wednesday morning, the poker world awoke to play in the ongoing Tom Dwan Million Dollar Challenge. The second incarnation of the “Durrrr Challenge” features Dwan battling against Dan “JungleMan12” Cates in 50,000 hands of No Limit Hold’em. On Wednesday, Cates cut into Dwan’s lead. Now, Cates is up by $564,000 after 12,976 hands. Visit our sister site, DurrrrChallenge.com, for a full recap.
Wednesday saw over 1,400 hands played in the early morning hours. When the smoke cleared, Dwan raked in about $9,000 in profit, leaving Cates with a $564,400 lead with the challenge one-quarter of the way through. Dwan and Cates have bet an amazing $82 million over the course of the first 13,000 hands and played 13 sessions totaling 22 hours of real time.
In one of the largest pots of the most recent session, Dwan raised to $1,200 pre-flop and Cates 3bet to $3,600. Dwan called and the flop came 2-9-4 with two hearts. Despite the seemingly benign flop, fireworks went off, as Cates led out for $3,600 and Dwan pushed all-in over the top for $26,000. Cates called and tabled pocket queens for an overpair, while Dwan showed 10-5 of hearts for a flush draw.
The turn and river were dealt twice. The first board included the nine of spades on the turn and ace of diamonds on the river, giving $30,000, or half of the pot, to Cates. The ace of clubs and 10 of clubs fell on the second board and Cates scooped the entire $60,000 pot after no heart came to the rescue.
In another hand, Cates raised to $800 pre-flop and Dwan pushed the action to $2,400. Cates called and the flop came 10-3-9 with two hearts. Dwan fired out a bet of $3,200 and Cates came along to see a black nine on the turn. Dwan bet out $8,600 and Cates called time to decide his action. The challenger ultimately called and the river brought the three of diamonds.
Dwan checked and Cates wisely checked behind. Dwan, who had tried to slow-play his hand on the river, showed pocket nines for quads, while Cates mucked. The pot was worth $28,000 and helped Dwan continue to cut into Cates’ early lead in the second running of the Million Dollar Challenge.
Dwan has come out on top in the last two Durrrr Challenge sessions. In the action on December 8th, Dwan pulled down $172,000 in profit, giving him nearly $200,000 for the last two sessions combined. Dwan had jumped out to the early lead in the Durrrr Challenge, but lost it by the 2,000th hand. Since then, Cates has been on a tear and was at one point up by over $800,000.
Six days ago, Cates was seemingly on a roll, chirping to his followers on Twitter, “I may or may not have revolutionized poker today – I quadruple range merged. More forthcoming.” Then, on December 14th, he admitted, “Played all night, some vs Patrik Antonius, and ended up losing. Not happy with how I played.” Dwan, meanwhile, reported that nourishment may have been the cause of his hot run in Wednesday’s Durrrr Challenge session: “Just had some tasty duck, now gonna play JungleMan in 30min or so.”
Stay tuned to Poker News Daily for the latest from the Tom Dwan Million Dollar Challenge.