On February 19th, 2009, after months of speculation on whether or not Tom Dwan's poker challenge would actually happen, the challenge has officially started. The challenge refers to the terms placed by Dwan in Card Player magazine. Dwan offered to pay $1.5 million (while his opponent will only have $500,000 on the side) as an incentive to any poker player who can edge him out over fifty thousand hands at 4 simultaneous heads-up online poker tables at minimum stakes at $200 -$400 in either pot-limit Omaha or no-limit Texas Holdem.
Dwan informed Card Player at 6:15 a.m. today to announce that the challenge was beginning. Dwan said that he and fellow poker player Patrik Antonius played around 1,541 card hand or three prevent of the fifty thousand card hands that are needed for the challenge in their first game. Tom Dwan finished the session up to $134,911.50. The online poker phenom publicly announced his challenge in January and it did not take long for some of the top poker pros to respond. Phil Ivey and David Benyamine accepted the challenge.
Antonius soon responded to the challenge and informed CardPlayer.com that he was accepting Dwan's offer. After the poker pros worked out the details, it was decided that the Finnish poker star would have the first go at Dwan. Dwan said that he will probably play all three players unless the first two matches went terribly. Antonius said that he expects the challenge will take between 4 to 6 months. He added that he and Dwan will play as much as they can. Although both poker players can stop the challenge prematurely and pay off the side wager, both players stated that it is highly unlikely that they will do that.
The challenge does not have fix schedule because the participants do not know in advance when they will have a free time. But poker enthusiasts can watch out for poker action on Full Tilt Poker at the "durrrr Challenge" poker tables in the Omaha Hi cash game section.
03/22/2009 19:48 PM