The Durrrr Challenge Continues with a Minor Session

After two years’ break, Tom ‘durrrr’ Dwan and Daniel ‘jungleman12’ Cates resumed their 50,000 hands heads-up duel.

‘Durrrr’ and ‘jungleman12’ started their duel, dubbed the Durrrr Challenge 2, in August, 2010. The last hand they played was the 19,335th, where Cates stood at $1,251,059 in profits. Dwan was apparently unable to counter the NLHE heads-up specialist, at his prime at the time, which might be the main reason he began to postpone further hands and chose the highly plus EV games in Macau instead.

The events of the Black Friday and the revoking of the FTP licence froze the duel for long, even though ‘jungleman’ has several times claimed that he was willing to continue either live or in another room.

In 2012, FTP returned, ‘durrrr’ became the room’s pro once again and he also grew active on the online high stakes tables; there remained no theoretical obstacle in the way to resume the challenge. Following a bit of an argument, the two players arranged the details of continuing the game and today, they have played the first hands of the new instalment of Durrrr Challenge 2. However, the 383 hands they completed are more of a warm-up than actual play.

No great changes were made to the overall standings, either: Dwan won with $158. There was no lack in interesting hands, though: in one of the most exciting ones, ‘Durrrr’ took an $81,199 pot with an incredible call:

Jungleman (stack: $40,599) posted the $200 BB, durrrr (stack: $112,896) posted the $400 BB. Jungleman raised to $800, durrrr 3-bet to $2,500, jungleman 4-bet to $5,200 and durrrr called. The fop came 8 3 Q. Durrrr checked, jungleman opened to $4,200 and durrrr called. The turn was 6. Durrrr checked, jungleman opened to $8,400 and durrrr called again. He also checked the A river, jungleman shoved with $22,799 and durrrr called. Jungleman showed 3 7 fifth pair and durrrr won with 9 8 third pair.

Regarding the playing of the remaining hands, there is no piece of information as yet. ‘Jungleman’ wrote in the chatbox that he was available anytime and ‘durrrr’ said they could carry on soon, except for Monday. For the next two weeks, the two have arranged several sessions.

Tom Dwan first offered the heads-up challenge in January, 2009:

“I’m making this heads-up challenge to the world. Anyone can accept. Four tables, minimum of $200/$400, and I’ll put up $1.5 million to their $500,000. We play 50,000 hands minimum and if they end up a dollar after rake they keep the side money or whatever. So basically, if you and I played and you won a dollar, you would get my $1.5 million and if I won a dollar I would win your $500,000. So I’m giving a million dollars free if anyone thinks they can do it.”

The first to accept the challenge was Patrik Antonius: they started to play in February of the same year. At 39,436 hands, however, the session got stuck. ‘Durrrr’ had at the moment a $2,059,719 profit; while not officially confirmed, it has been rumoured that the challenge had been abandoned finally, Antonius buying himself out.

The current standings of the Durrrr Challenge 2 are as follows:

Tom ‘durrrr’ Dwan v. Daniel ‘jungleman12’ Cates
In the lead: Daniel ‘jungleman12’ Cates
Profit: $1,250,817
Hands played: 19,718
Hands left: 30,282
Start: August, 2010