The rumors are officially now fact as Daniel “Jungleman12” Cates has begun the Durrrr Challenge against Tom Dwan. We reported earlier in the week that Jungleman12 escrowed a half-million dollars to Phil Ivey which was necessary to begin the challenge.
Play began around 1:30 a.m. EST with players sitting at four tables simultaneously of $200/$400 No Limit Hold’em Heads-up games. The tables they sat down at were Tissue, Bridle, Bugle and Alaqua.
For those of you that haven’t familiarized yourself with Jungleman12 yet, he’s an instructor at popular poker training site CardRunners.com. Lifetime, according to Poker Table Ratings, he’s up on Tom Dwan approximately $661,000 lifetime before the challenge began. In the weeks leading up to the challenge it was Tom Dwan himself that suggested that Jungleman12 join the Durrrr Challenge because he always runs so well against him. Apparently, that was more than enough for Cates to accept and now it’s official.
Play continues at the time of this article’s publication, and there has been some monster pots involving $40,000 starting stacks. Right now on the tables the chip stacks account as follows (after approximately 60 hands of play on each of the four tables):
Tissue: Durrrr ($102,783) / Jungleman12 ($52,779)
Bridle: Durrrr ($62,989) / Jungleman12 ($101,082)
Bugle: Durrrr ($163,184) / Jungleman12 ($38,800)
Alaqua: Durrrr ($74,185) / Jungleman12 ($47,187)
It seems that Dwan has been getting the best of Cates early on in this first session. Since there are 50,000 hands of play to be had for his new edition of the Durrrr Challenge, we can expect long sessions and consistent play, unlike what we have seen out of Patrik Antonius.
For pots that are all-ins, both players have agreed to check the “Run It Twice” option. An example of a hand where that played out was Hand #23398290228:
Durrrr: 9c 8c
Jungleman12: Qc 4c
Flop: Tc 2c 9s
Both players went all in to create two pots of $54,397 each. The first “run” had the 7c and 7d hit turn and river, giving Cates the winning flush. The second “run” had the Ah and 4h hit turn and river, giving Durrrr the win with a pair of nines over Jungleman12’s pair of fours. In that particular hand, the pot was chopped evenly.
Once the session has completed, we will have a recap of the first session and report stats and analysis.
