29 Nov 2024 Tom Dwan is one of the most iconic players in the world of poker and he has some really amazing poker stories in his 17-year-long career. From his rumored Macau Cash games, to almost being a poker hall of famer, to his insane poker prop bets, here are 7 amazing Tom Dwan poker stories you probably didn't know. #1: The origin of the nickname Durrrr As juvenile as it may sound, Tom Dwan's screen name Durrrr was originally created when he first started playing poker at the tender age of 17. He made the username when he registered at Paradise Poker with a $50 birthday present from his dad. Dwan was hesitant at first because he didn't like the idea of illegally gambling online. Feeling pressured by his friends though, he decided to give poker a chance. By his 18th birthday, 4 months after he started playing poker online, Dwan had amassed a $15,000 bankroll. Did his choice of obscure screen name have any effect on his success you may ask? In an interview, he stated that when he first began playing poker online, he wanted to choose an online poker alias that would annoy opposition when they were beat, putting them on tilt and further increasing his chances of winning more pots from them. One more interesting tidbit about Dwan's screen name is that it's really a Hebrew name. Well, Durrrr with one R is anyway. And what makes it even more ironic is that in Hebrew, the name Durrrr means accumulating. Durrrr has been accumulating poker chips now for nearly 17 years, so some may think it's a bit ironic. Others probably believe it's just a coincidence. #2: Tom Dwan Rumors There are some pretty incredible rumors surrounding Tom Dwan, but none of them have been confirmed. In general, Dwan is a very mysterious figure in poker, therefore the rumors are often circulating around this person. Mostly the rumors are about how much Tom Dwan won or lost During his private cash games in Macau. One of these rumors was from the Star World Casino in Macau, where Dwan was in the middle of a $6,000-$12,000 no-limit game. For those of you who haven't realized, 100 big blinds in this game would amount to $1.2 million. The game was four-handed, and according to rumors, two opponents were Chinese professionals, and the fourth one was a billionaire. Dwan was the only professional who they let play on the table since, as rumors go, they have kicked out all the Western professionals. This may be due to the fact that Tom Dwan is a player who gives a lot of action with a very loose game and perhaps the other players would play a not-so-friendly game for the Asian gamblers. People discussed the match of the ex Full Tilt professional and it was said that Dwan lost $7 million in one day and left for the United States. However, he came back for a rematch and won a record $25 million in a table equivalent to 15,000-30,000 blinds. This is, however, unconfirmed mostly because of tax implications and also to keep the identities private and we'll probably never know the real numbers. However, in a tweet, Tom Dwan said that the story was bogus and he had definitely not won $25 million in a session. Jungleman Daniel Cates also shared a fascinating glimpse into the size of pots being won and lost in Macau while participating in an Ask Me Anything session for PokerVIP.com. In that interview, Cates said that he saw Tom Dwan lose $20 million on a set-over-set on a dry board. Around the same time, Dwan began to rarely appear in public around 2014. Tom Dwan's Twitter account also died down and Dwan's last comment on 2plus2 with any substance was in a thread about him playing a huge cash game in Macau. After that, the theories of Tom Dwan's bankruptcy started to be discussed on the network. Thus, for example, in accordance to one of the theories, Tom Dwan was taken hostage in Macau and according to another theory, he was hiding from rich businessmen who lent him money. #3: Tom Dwan's Cash Game Records on TV Tom Dwan had become more recognizable in poker circles due to his participation in such well-known poker shows like High Stakes Poker and Poker After Dark. No one at that time had seen a more aggressive and gutsy approach to poker like Tom Dwan. He was an absolute joy to watch, and all poker players liked him because he gave tremendous action. No wonder Tom Dwan was the biggest winner of High Stakes Poker even if he had played just two seasons with total winnings of $1.75 million. After he left, the program rating dropped by almost half. Even in the latest season of High Stakes Poker, he was a big winner, taking his cumulative winnings on High Stakes Poker to over $2 million in all the eight seasons. Not only that, he was also the biggest winner in Poker After Dark with earnings of more than $2 million in all seasons he appeared. This alone shows us the dominance of Tom Dwan at High Stakes Cash Games. #4: Almost a Poker Hall of Famer In 2009, Tom Dwan was approached by FullTilt Poker, one of the most successful online poker sites at that time. They wanted him to join their team of professionals who got paid to play on Full Tilt Poker's site and wear a Full Tilt Poker uniform at all live tournaments they competed in. Dwan felt honored to be able to join this team as he was already a regular on this site. Also the same year, Tom Dwan was a finalist for the Poker Hall of Fame because of public balloting. But then his name was dropped off not because of his ability as a poker player but more so his age and lack of results in big live tournaments. A spokesman for the Poker Hall of Fame Governing Council released a statement, With all due respect to Mr. Dwan, one of the game's most exciting young players, he does not currently meet the criteria for Hall of Fame selection. We wish him well and expect he will again be considered once he has stood the test of time. #5: Tom Dwan Almost Broke Vegas Perhaps the most intriguing bracelet bet of all time was a story involving Tom Dwan. Dwan is not known as a tournament player but the lure of the bracelet bet sparked his interest and he booked action, I mean a lot of action. Pretty much everyone in the high-stakes community bet against Tom Dwan winning a bracelet, giving him odds of 3-1. Nobody will know the exact monetary amounts involved but they were speculated to be around 9-20 million dollars if Dwan had won. So amazingly, when Tom Dwan found himself heads up for a bracelet in event number 11, the $1500 No Limit Hold'em event, Vegas got scared. Dwan was facing Simon Watt, an accomplished player from New Zealand who had previously won a big regional event in New Zealand, the ANZPT, for $200,000. The atmosphere at the final table was tense. It felt more like a WSOP Main Event than a seemingly irrelevant premium tournament. Simon Watt was fighting for a $614,000 prize but also to deny Tom Dwan a pot more than 20 times larger than that. The high-stakes poker community was on the ropes. Huck Seed, who had a $300,000 bet against Dwan, was so convinced that he had already lost the bet that he actually wired Dwan the money before the match was over. However, it would be Simon Watt who prevailed in the tournament, notching his place in his history books as winning $614,000 but should be better known as the man that denied Tom Dwan a multi-million prize and kept the Las Vegas poker economy afloat. #6: A Funny Prop Bet This is probably one of the funniest Tom Dwan stories in poker and also a prop bet that did not involve any money. This craziness took place during the 2008 World Poker Tour Championship. Dwan had a prop bet with his friend, Alan Sass, that he could not arrive on time for a tournament. Of course, Dwan slept in and was forced to play the entirety of the tournament with the awkwardly flamboyant hats. Dwan wore a variety of hats like the Chiquita Banana Lady headwrap Durrrr was wearing on day 1, a bowling pin hat, and finally, Dwan managed to go to the final table of the event wearing a pink flamingo hat. #7: The Durrrr Challenge One of the things associated with Tom Dwan was the infamous Durrrr Challenge. Almost everyone knows about their heads-up match with Daniel Cates, but what most people don't know is that Tom Dwan had actually four Durrrr Challenges. The first ones to accept the challenge were Patrick Antonius, David Benjamin, and Phil Ivey. From these three, Antonius was the one who actually played the first Durrrr Challenge. The Finnish professional poker player agreed to play heads-up PLO with Dwan, which may have been a mistake, as Tom Dwan was known to be a better PLO player than No-Limit Hold’em. Dwan was firmly in control, and after 39,436 hands of the 50,000 hands to be played, he was up by almost $2.01 million. The action died down gradually, and it was later announced that both players had settled the challenge privately, most likely with Antonius paying most of the $500,000 side bet to Dwan in exchange for an early end of the challenge. Being firmly on top of his game, Dwan accepted the challenge of Daniel Cage in 2010 as the second Durrrr Challenge, but even that match up was never completed and has led to a lot of controversy. The third one in line was Isaac Haxton, and throughout all the drama between Cates and Dwan, Isaac Haxton had sat idly, month after month, year after year, awaiting his turn to take on the New Jersey-born poker pro. Finally, Isaac announced that he has no longer any intention of going through the challenge, calling it a joke. Haxton said that he was no longer interested in playing a challenge of this nature where there were no stipulations, nor anyone is held responsible for ensuring that the game continues in a reasonable time frame. Tom Dwan also announced a live version of this challenge, which was recorded in London and televised in the UK called the Durrrr Million Dollar Challenge. This challenge saw Durrrr participate in three matches, taking on Ilari Sahamias, Sami and Marcello. The rules of this challenge saw a $500,000 buy-in, in which no player was allowed to leave the table until they go broke or 500 hands were played with blinds of 500-1000 and the opponents got to choose whether they would play No Limit Hold'em or PLO. In the first match, Dwan faced Marcello, playing No Limit Hold'em, where the Italian won $22,500 from Dwan. Next, Tom faced Zigmund, playing PLO and managed to book a $68,000 win. But in the final match, Dwan won a massive $750,000 from Sami George after a No Limit Hold'em battle. This article was written by Dennis «Dennis_Stets» based on a video from the Poker Bounty channel.
