Virtual railbirds got excited about the Durrrr Challenge for one reason.  They expected to see long, taxing multi-table high stakes action.  Instead of being a torrent of hand volume it’s been a trickle here and there.  The Challenge, thought to be a slugfest settled mostly by long sessions, instead has been an 18 round fight with the two combatants mostly circling and avoiding big punches.  

In the words of Prahald Friedman they’ve been practicing “avoidance.”  However, things have started to heat. up.  After a series of random infrequent battles the led up to the World Series the last thing fans expected was for the action to be the most heated concurrent to the biggest tournament in the world. 

It’s been rumored Patrik’s health problems have kept him out of the live poker action (despite living in Vegas).  Durrrr has seemed almost disinterested in the tournaments at the Rio, so oddly the inverse of expectations have come to fruition. 

This past week, when Dwan and Antonius sat down nobody realized things wer going to change.  Change they did.  There weren’t a couple fo big pots, there were a lot of them.  The swings which had been fairly minimal in the entire challenge were huge in one day’s worht of action, and the staid (for them) action was replaced by three and four betting.

The challenge is very different than how it began.  In the first quarter of play, the heavyweights did their dance around the ring with prodding, lumbering jabs, and incremental shifts of momentum and smallish pots (for their stakes).  Play shifted as the two got deeper into things. 

The big Nordic went on a bit of a run and put some distance beteen himself and Dwan.  It was fun while it lasted.  Patrick seemed to extend things slowly and surely after each internet poker session.  In fact, based on the tenor of the Challenge so far some had suggested Patrick was soon going to be too far ahead.

The sanity of giving out three to one odds was then questioned (Dwan is offering Patrick 1.5 million if he wins, whereas Patrick only has to pay 500k) because it seemed like a slow and sure victory.  Then the World Series happened and Dwan has siezed control.   

Dwan’s tear has been exactly the opposite of how Antonius grabbed the lead.  Big pots, one after another, after another went Dwan’s way and finally they seemed to be playing for the high stakes everybody thought they would.   Dwan got things up to as much as million last week.  What’s even more impressive, is the first swing went Anotionius way.  He almost doubled his lead early and then it was all Dwan.

Dwan made up what he was down in the session, then what he was down in the Challenge and within two days Dwan had been able to extend his lead to over a million dollars.

Bookending the action Antonius won another large pot and got things down to a more manageable 730k deficit.  The two have now played over 40% of the Challenge with a minimum of 50,000 hands to be played.