No sooner did Durrrr get off to a lead in his Texas Hold em poker invitational did things take a drastic change. After a short 3% of the 50k hands were played Durrrr had gotten out to a little 130k lead. Things changed dramatically when they reconvened. With almost 12% of the hands finished, playing a further 9%, Jungleman12 had raced into uncharted territory.
Not only did he have a lead but already in the second Durrrr Challenge he was pressing a bigger lead than Antonius ever maintained on the little poker prodigy in the first challenge. This is without the more volitle option of playing Pot Limit Omaha. Daniel “jungleman12″ Cates erased the deficit Durrrr held over him and amassed a further 500k in profit in almost 6k worht of hands. To be exact Cates posted a $518k profit over a total of 5,829 hands. Now Dwan will be pressed to make a second comeback from over half a million dollars. Of course, the first challenge isn’t even in the books yet so who knows if his comeback vs. Antonius won’t suffer a bigger one at the hands of the giant Finn before they limp into the finish line.
The second session followed up a much rosier first encounter (rosier for Tom Dwan at least). In that session, between “jungleman12″ and “durrrr” which lasted approximately 2 hours, Dwan won his 130k over 1651 hands. Playing on six tables for most of the time neither player was really feeling out the other, they seemed to attack as if they were midway into the challenge.
Dwan’s glory was short-lived. The two players reconvened in the early morning, at around 5:15 am EST to play for almost 7 hours. Their online poker platform had tables reserved for them (they weren’t available during the first session) and the two got at it. Their perception of how those seven hours went couldn’t be more different. Durrrr watch his lead evaporate and then saw a deficit amass.
The chatbox smack talking that preceded this event gave good indication that Dwan probably did not expected to be tested as sternly as jungleman12 has given. Dwan called Cates a fish but Cates so far seems to be the shark in the waters right now despite his less than glorious live poker resume. After getting rapped on the knuckles by the veteran, Cates regrouped and gave better than he got from Dwan. Cates expressed s”urrrr”prise when Dwan opened up the smack talk before they locked horns saying he didn’t think that was Dwan’s style.
Dwan replied by saying once the money was in escrow there was basically no where for Cates to hide. For what it is worth Phil Ivey is holding the 500k Cates put up in the challenge and the 1.5 million Dwan put up. Considering that 3 million of Dwan’s money is in escrow somewhere the kid has a HUGE bankroll.
It looks like he’ll get his 1.5 million wagered against Antonius back plus the 500k he should win, but right now, despite being early things are certainly a lot bleaker than they were just hours before hand. The two set a torrid pace on their path to completing 50k in hands. Considering one day into the challenge they are pushing 12% done, they could wrap things up within a week (if they wanted to).
Many people thought the first challenge with Antonius would be just that quick. 18 months later and it’s still going. With more than 20% to play and a big lead for Dwan, one wonders if they will every regroup to finish it off. Hopefully, similar hold-ups won’t delay the second challenge in the future. Railbirds and poker fans alike can take some satisfaction that this challenge is moving quickly and Cates is up for the challenge.