After an excruciatingly elongated hiatus that lasted more than two years, the lull has finally come to an end. Tom “durrrr” Dwan and Daniel “jungleman12” Cates have returned to the virtual felt to complete the Durrrr Challenge on Full Tilt Poker.
The action resumed on Sunday, April 14, three years after these two American poker pros began their 50,000-hand battle, and two years after the ominous Black Friday of Online Poker shut down FTP (and a few other big-name poker brands).
The face-off didn’t last nearly as long as railbirds would have liked. They took to the tables – four of them at once, as the rules require – and after less than an hour, parted ways. “Well that was fast…” tweeted Cates, “but I think @TomDwan and I will get a good game soon.”
Interestingly enough, Dwan and Cates could not seem to agree on just how many hands had been played. Dwan claimed 376 hands in the chat log, while Cates asserted they had seen 493 starting hands. The one thing they did agree on was that Dwan ended the session down a little more than $59k.
It’s not certain exactly when the Durrrr Challenge will resume next, but sometime in the next few weeks, if not later this week, is expected. We gather this solely from the way Tom and Daniel said their goodbyes in the poker chat.
durrrr: kk ill be around some of the next few days i think
durrrr: not tonight tho prolly
durrrr: cya
jungleman12: if you want, we can play sometime in next couple weeks
jungleman12: ok cya
For those who haven’t been following the Durrrr Challenge of late, the continuation was sparked by Daniel Cates, who publicly spurned Tom Dwan last month on Twitter for neglecting the Challenge, despite durrrr’s active return to Full Tilt Poker after the site re-launched in late 2012.
Cates tweeted that Dwan should continue the Durrrr Challenge:
“instead of playing everybody else at every game on @FullTiltPoker”.
Daniel also made known his ire with a tweet that claimed Dwan would not speak to him:
“I told him Im open to negotation. Im real pissed at how this has turned out, this will end in 2017 lol.”
According to jungleman12, Tom has repeatedly avoided him because Dwan fears the inevitable loss of $1.5 million. Durrrr was already down $1.25 million when Full Tilt Poker was suddenly seized by the DOJ in 2011, resulting in the unavoidable manifestation of an extensive hiatus. “Nobody wants to continue when they’re getting crushed,” Cates told PokerListings.
While Daniel continued to verbally blast his opponent left and right through public forums, Tom maintained that he was perfectly willingly to get back to the virtual felt and continue their Durrrr Challenge. Interest piqued by the sudden interaction between the two, we railbirds watched and waited, perched upon the edge of our chairs, baited breath misting the frigid corridors leading to cybernetic seats that hadn’t been occupied in two years.
Needless to say, we at DurrrrChallenge.com could not be happier to witness the long-awaited arrival of durrrr and jungleman12 on simultaneous tables at Full Tilt. Let the festivities resume!
