Bloggers / Matthew Pitt / 14 October 2009 / Leave a comment

Towards the back end of July this year, it was reported that Tom 'durrrr' Dwan was going to take his million dollar challenge to London, in an extension to the online challenge he issued to poker's elite.

For those of you not in the know, Tom 'durrrr' Dwan is a 22-year old cash game specialist who can be found regularly playing for the highest stakes available and is believed to have won close to $10,000,000 in his career so far. So confident in his own ability, Dwan said he would play anyone in the world, except his friend Phil 'OMGClayAiken' Galfond, and give them 3-to-1 odds if they bet at least $500,000 on beating him!

As you would expect, poker forums were full of overly excited people speculating on who would take him up on this seemingly ridiculous bet and when it emerged that Finnish superstars, Patrik Antonius would be first to step up to the mark, the entire online poker community simply could not wait for the challenge to start.

However, what was billed as an epic battle has turned out to be the biggest anti-climax in poker history. The two nose-bleed stakes regulars rarely play each other and it has taken several month to play just half of the required 50,000 hands they agreed on.

In an attempt to divert attention from this situation, 'durrrr', Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Sport started promoting a live version of the "durrrr challenge" where he would play anybody in the world for 500 hands of $500/$1,000 Pot Limit Omaha or No Limit Hold'em, where neither player is allowed to leave the table until they are broke or the 500 hand threshold has passed.

Sammy 'Any 2' George was the first to accept the challenge and the match was scheduled to coincide with the 2009 World Series of Poker Europe Main Event, which was eventually won by Barry Shulman, but the match failed to materialise.

Speculation has been rife that the challenge would be moved to Las Vegas instead of London and when asked if there was any truth in the rumours Eddie Hearn replied, "Things have been crazy in London and now Tom has made through to the semi-finals of Poker Million [so] it now looks like it will be held in Vegas in early December. "

He also revealed four players had agreed to play Dwan but refused to reveal the names of the quartet. With the online version of this challenge seemingly treading water, I would not hold my breath expecting to see Dwan take on Sammy George, or anyone else in fact, in the near future.

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