Isaac Haxton initiated the Durrrr Challenge with Tom Dwan more than two years ago, taking the third place in line behind Patrik Antonius and current contender Daniel “jungleman12” Cates. In a recent interview with Poker Tube, Haxton made it very clear that he no longer has any intention of going through with the challenge, calling it a joke.
Tom “durrrr” Dwan began his challenge with Patrik Antonius in 2009, but the two never finished the 50,000 requisite hands to see it through to the end. Daniel Cates began his run for $1.5 million of Dwan’s money in 2010, but again, that challenge has yet to be completed. In Dwan’s defense, both competitions were forced into a very long, 18-month hiatus due to the closure of Full Tilt Poker on Black Friday. The fact that it took durrrr and jungleman12 an additional six months to actually resume the challenge brings the total break to two full years.
Before FTP was relaunched in November of 2012, Patrik had already moved on. Having completed 39,436 of the obligatory 50,000 hands, trailing Dwan by more than 2 million dollars ($2,059,719.50), Antonius apparently chose to admit defeat and grant the victory to Dwan. It was never officially announced whether Patrik conceded and/or paid off his $500k debt. However, Antonius has since returned to the Full Tilt tables under the moniker “FinddaGrind”, and the mere fact that neither has mentioned it, and knowing him to be an upright man of his word, leads us to safely assume all was finalized.
Daniel Cates, on the other hand, went to great length to call out his Durrrr Challenge foe, publically blasting Dwan on Twitter and in media interviews until Tom stepped up and acquiesced to a continuation the card battle. They have played three sessions since then between April and May of this year.
Throughout all of this drama, Isaac Haxton has sat idly b, month after month, year after year, awaiting his turn to take on the New Jersey born poker pro. Finally, he announced that he has no intention of waiting any longer. Haxton stated that the Durrrr Challenge was nothing more than a joke. The heads-up duel between Daniel Cates and Tom Dwan has been going on since August of 2010, and they have yet to hit the halfway mark. After this year’s three short session, the latest count reveals they have completed 21,174 hands, with jungleman12 leading $1,070,759.
Haxton said that he is no longer interested in playing a challenge of this nature, where no stipulations are set, nor anyone is held responsible for ensuring that the game continues in a reasonable time frame. “Det bliver noget rod,” said Haxton, which roughly translates to, “It will be a mess”.
