Tom ‘durrrr’ Dwan Extends Challenge Lead To $1.9 million

More than a year after launching the ‘Durrrr Challenge,’ the writing seems to be all but on the wall for Patrik Antonius, who now finds himself stuck $1.9 million against Tom Dwan with just 13,940 hands left to play of their 50,000 heads-up epic battle.
The challenge itself got underway on February 21st 2009, when Dwan booked a $134,911.50 win after 1500 hands of their agreed minimum of $200/$400 NL/PLO, and he hasn’t looked back since.
Patrik Antonius could be forgiven for feeling more than a little frustrated after steadily losing to his 23 year-old opponent over the past year, but having recently recouped $2.64 million of the $3.15 million he found himself down from his other Full Tilt Poker cash endeavours, Antonius must have felt buoyed going into Tuesday’s match.
After booking a $60,696 win from Dwan over an 8.5 hour, 2,677 hand encounter, the duo were at it once again on Wednesday with Antonius hoping for further gains to add credence to his recent upturn.
However, Tom Dwan had other ideas and despite Antonius getting off to a good start, he could not manage to wrestle any more of Dwan’s bankroll from him and he ended the session dropping around $6,000 to him after 2,757 hands.
The largest pot on the day was worth $275,000 and occured after Dwan was dealt Qs-7s-7c-2h to Antonius’ Kh-Qh-Qd-5d. Pre-flop, Dwan raised the betting to $1,000 and was re-raised to $3,200, which he called.
With the flop coming Jd-7d-3h, both players got all their money into the centre of the table and despite Antonius making a flush when the turn and river brought a Js and 3d, Dwan made a full house to scoop the monster pot.
Having now won a mere 2 of his last 14 sessions played against Dwan, Antonius must now produce a minor miracle if he is to turn the match around and avoid forfeiting the $500,000 challenge wager to Dwan, in addition to his already not insignificant losses.