The Durrrr Challenge might be two-thirds completed, but at this point, a lot of players are beginning to think that Patrik Antonius is fully cooked. According to our good friends at DurrrrChallenge.com, there have been 33,303 hands played out of the 50,000 total, with Tom “durrrr” Dwan up over $1.9 million. Over the course of 55 sessions and over a year of play, we’re finally closing the challenge’s first chapter.
Back in January 2009, Dwan issued a challenge to the entire poker world at three to one odds putting up $1.5 million against $500,000. The challenge was relatively simple: play Dwan over 50,000 hands at Full Tilt Poker at either No Limit Hold’em or Pot Limit Omaha with stakes of $200-$400 minimum. Both players have to reload their stack if it falls below 75 big blinds at any time. If you beat Dwan over those 50,000 hands, even by $1, you win whatever you won at the tables plus the $1.5 million Dwan put up for the challenge. Lose and durrrr keeps all of the profits plus $500,000. The first to accept the challenge was Finland’s finest poker player, Antonius.
Thanks to the slick Durrrr Challenge page over at Full Tilt Poker plus the regular updates at DurrrrChallenge.com, we’ve been able to follow the action pretty closely. The start of the challenge saw what seemed to be huge swings at the time, with hundreds of thousands of dollars going back and forth between sessions. What we now know is that we were seeing what amounted to a 12,000 hand break-even stretch for both players. During that time, Dwan took a quarter-million dollar lead, but Antonius fought back eventually and evened things up.
It was around the 13,000-hand mark that Antonius went on a decent run and actually took a lead of over a half-million dollars, which he held for about 2,000 hands. At the time, many felt that Dwan was in serious trouble because nobody had seen a lead that big during the challenge. However, as we gained more data, we now realize that half-million dollar swings were going to be something to get used to with these two playing four tables of $200-$400 Pot Limit Omaha, a game where variance can introduce serious swings for either player.
Around the 15,000-hand mark, it was durrrr’s time to shine. He went from being down a half-million to making things even within the course of about 1,000 hands. He wasn’t done there, as he continued to crush Antonius during the next 2,000 hands of play and get his lead over the $1.25 million mark.
Once again, those following the history of this challenge said they could now predict its outcome because of such a huge lead. Surprisingly, we were all proved wrong once again, as Antonius caught fire and completely erased Dwan’s lead in a matter of about 3,000 hands.
It’s at that point, around the 23,000-hand mark of the challenge, where the situation began to change. Instead of seeing million-dollar swings, we actually saw a sustained winning streak for over 10,000 hands. This time, it was Dwan who enjoyed the pendulum of fate and used his masterful poker skills to take the lead. From that 23,000th hand in the competition, Dwan ran his lead up to around $1.25 million once again, only to falter down to about a half-million after 5,000 hands. From there, he’s been on a sick run, bringing his lead over Antonius to an all-time high for the Durrrr Challenge at $1.9 million.
The top ten hands during the 33,303 played so far average $329,022, with the largest being $477,555 (won by Antonius). Although a $1.9 million lead by Dwan might seem insurmountable with fewer than 17,000 hands remaining, we’ve seen Antonius go on a $1.5 million tear before within a span of fewer than 4,000 hands. We can conclude then that this challenge is far from over, but the next 8,000 hands will be key for Antonius to have any chance of taking the lead for the conclusion of the challenge.
