In a week met by many swings in the world of online poker the online phenom Tom Dwan saw a steep drop in profits as he lost over $758,000 in the week ending August 20, 2010. Over a course of 7,400 hands played on Full Tilt Poker's high stakes $200/$400 Pot Limit Omaha and $2,000/$4,000 Limit Hold'em tables Dwan shipped back to his opponents roughly three quarters of the $969,000 he won the week prior. One major silver lining for Dwan is that he did not lose any of his money against Patrik Antonius as part of their Durrrr Challenge leaving the New Jersey native up $2 million against the Finn Antonius.
Dwan Takes a Hit but Still One of the Big Cash Winners of 2010
It can be argued that Tom "durrrr" Dwan is prone to high level swings back and forth from the red to the black and back to the red again, but as for 2010 Dwan is still up almost $4 million at the Full Tilt Poker high stakes tables regardless of his troubles this past week. One of the biggest winners of Dwan's money this past week was Scott "URnotINdanger2" Palmer who walked away with one of his best week's of online poker play at Full Tilt well over a half million in profit.
David Oppenheim and Gus Hansen dropped over $600,000 and $400,000 respectively this week making Dwan's losses stand out that much more. In reality Dwan is having the complete opposite of a year than Hansen who is down $1.2 million for 2010 and seems to be bleeding money quite consistently throughout the month of August. For nearly every regular on the Full Tilt high stakes tables it has been an interesting month now that Patrik Antonius and Palmer are holding some of the biggest online gains after a lull period of high stakes online play following the World Series of Poker. What will comes soon could put Tom Dwan into the driver's seat of an ever increasing profit margin for 2010 or curb his profits.
The Continuation of the Durrrr Challenge and the Second Challenge Accepted
Since February 2009 Tom Dwan and Patrik Antonius have been battling each other in a 50,000 hand marathon prop bet worth $1.5 million to Antonius if the Finn can collectively beat Dwan by just a dollar. This is known as the Durrrr Challenge. Right now Dwan is sitting comfortably with a $2 million lead. The problem is that it has been months since the two have sat down and played a serious session of the Durrrr Challenge and it looks like the last 10,000 hands of the bet are not to be finished any time soon.
However, with Antonius' recent winning streak during the month of August the Finnish poker pro might sit down and hammer out the last fifth of the challenge in an effort to take advantage of his positive momentum from August. In the meantime Dwan has a new challenger for his Durrrr Challenge: Daniel "Jungleman12" Cates. Cates is an up and coming high stakes player who has been making a name for himself over the past year and half challenging the big hitters of online poker and banking nearly $2.5 million in profits so far this year.
Daniel Cates is a well known instructor for the online poker school CardRunners and is an excellent challenger for Dwan even though he has not fared that well against Dwan in the past. No matter what Tom Dwan is likely to log some serious online poker sessions in the coming months now that the big live tournament season is over and either Cates or Antonius are likely to be his challengers. Even with his recent losses, Dwan is the one to beat in the world of high stakes online poker.
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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