In the finale of the live version of the Tom “durrrr” Dwan Million Dollar Challenge, the young American trumped high-stakes cash game specialist Sammy “Any Two” George to the tune of $750,000. The two played No Limit Texas Hold’em with a special $10,000 bonus awarded to any player who could take down a pot with 7-2, the worst starting hand in the game.
In the hand of the match, Dwan sought to take advantage of the bonus by pushing for $400,000 with 7-2 on a board of J-A-6-3-3 with three hearts. George tanked for a lengthy five-and-a-half minutes before folding A-6 for two pair. Dwan triumphantly flipped over his bluff and later told Million Dollar Challenge officials from Matchroom Sport, “On the river, I might have given up, but on the board-pairing river, I think it was an easy shove, as it’s so believable that I have a full house there and Sammy has a tough call with any hand. He rarely has a full house and it’s likely he just has aces or something like that, so I really like my shove on the river and fortunately Sammy didn’t make the hero call. It would have been an absurd call and luckily for me, he didn’t make it.”
At one point during the 500-hand match, George pushed with 9-4 for his last $90,000 after the flop fell 7-6-4. However, he picked an inopportune time to do so, as Dwan picked up A-7 for top pair, top kicker. He held $900,000 in his stack at the time and moved his way to just under $1 million as a result. The two combatants, the final pairing of the live version of the Durrrr Challenge, bought in for a colossal $500,000 each and blinds were set at $500/$1,000.
George was the first person to take up Dwan on his Million Dollar Challenge, which saw 500 hands of either No Limit Hold’em or Pot Limit Omaha play out in London. Neither player could leave the table until either the 500 hands had been hit or one was broke, whichever occurred first.
The first round of action, which occurred on Tuesday, saw Dwan take on Marcello “luckexpress” Marigliano, with the challenger coming out on top for $22,500. Dwan won 55% of the hands in the match, which consisted of a combination No Limit Hold’em and Pot Limit Omaha. Dwan then went on to face Power Poker front man Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies and took the former “High Stakes Poker” contestant for $68,000. Dwan showed up to the battle drowsy after playing Swedish online poker pro Isildur1 during an overnight session, but rallied to defeat Sahamies.
On the overall event, organizer Eddie Hearn commented in a press release, “The last three days has been a roller coaster of swings and emotions at the Full Tilt Poker Durrrr Million Dollar Challenge. Every match brought something different to the table and the Sammy George encounter was a real battle. To be fair to Sammy, he played some great poker, but Tom was faultless and that’s why he is the best player in the world. All in all, the event was a huge success and we are already in talks to take the challenge to the States early next year.” No dates for a U.S. installment were revealed.
The Million Dollar Challenge was originally scheduled to occur back in September during the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Europe festivities in London. Then, Hearn and company discussed taking the festivities to Las Vegas in December, but ultimately settled on London this month. The three-day series panned out at the Les Ambassadeurs Club in Mayfair.
