The Second Durrrr Challenge between Tom "durrrr" Dwan and Daniel "jungleman12" Cates continued March 29. A moderate session of 1,099 hands played left Dwan down another $39,000 and change and is down roughly $1.2m overall to Cates. With nearly 20,000 hands out of the total 50,000 now finished Cates has a commanding lead on the $300/$600 No Limit Hold 'em tables on Full Tilt Poker.
Dwan's Hold 'em Play Dominated by Cates
Dwan's first Durrrr Challenge against fellow Full Tilt Poker Team Pro, Patrik Antonius, has been stalled for several months with the young phenom in the driver's seat of the Pot Limit Omaha challenge, but his Texas Hold 'em play against Cates is clearly having trouble standing up. Cates is on a $2m online heater this year while Dwan has been on an equally epic downswing. The continuation of the Durrrr Challenge perfectly reflects their current play online.
Cates has recently gained mainstream recognition as the new poster boy of online poker, following in Dwan's footsteps. He was featured in a New York Times Magazine article detailing his enormous rise through the poker ranks in 2010, posting a $5m profit that year. While the piece focused on how the online poker industry is creating young millionaires it also points out the isolated, competitive players it has created.
Online Poker Railbirds Souring to Durrrr Challenge
High-stakes poker has turned into a sort of spectator sport over the past few years and the Durrrr Challenge has been built up over the past two as the ultimate contest with online poker's biggest name in Dwan against Patrik Antonius and Daniel Cates. The problem with the challenge, in regards to spectators, is that the required 50,000 hands that needs to be played is taking a great amount of time to be played.
Online poker has created a faster game where professionals multi-table up to 24 tables playing thousands of hands an hour. But when players like Cates and Dwan sit down at $300/$600 tables and several six-figure pots are shipped across the virtual felts, it can be hard to keep that pace up. That's why the 50,000 hands are difficult to complete and the railbirds are getting frustrated by the hype the challenge has created without the payoff.
To help cure this hostility and properly utilize the hype PokerStars created the SuperStar Showdown that lines up their own young team pro Viktor "Isildur1" Blom against challengers like Daniel Negreanu in pre-scheduled events. However, with 19,335 hands played out of the 50,000-hand Durrrr Challenge, and Cates in a commanding lead, Full Tilt Poker's fans and railbirds are still actively following the action.
Sources
David Tubbs - David is a graduate of the University of Waterloo with an Honours B.A. in History with a focus on medieval Europe. While his formal ...
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