Tom Dwan Brings His Poker Challenge to London

There has been no action in his challenge match against Patrik Antonius since June 19th with Dwan commenting recently that his opponent “never seems to be online”. This suggests that Antonius has stayed away from the challenge, since taking a big loss from the last session played. With zero cashes for both participants at the World Series of Poker, Antonius has been playing in the big game in Bobby’s Room at the Bellagio recently. Dwan, eager to maintain the momentum of his poker challenges, has announced a number of smaller live challenge matches to be played out in London, England.

Teaming up with Matchroom Sport, Dwan has laid out the conditions to his challengers wishing to participate. The matches will be played over 500 hands, with a $500,000 buy-in. The blinds will be $500 – $1000 so action will be fast. Each player is not allowed to quit unless they go broke or the 500 hands have been played. There has been no announcement who his opponents will be, or exactly when or where the challenge will take place. It is pencilled in for November. This may mean that WSOP final table participant Phil Ivey may be unable to take part. This may or may not be deliberate on Dwans part, although Ivey would probably play the match the day before the final table and fly over to Las Vegas to make the final table!

His challenge against Antonius was expected to move at a faster pace than it has done. There were numerous short sessions until a long 14 hour session in June, which turned out to be the last session played so far. Interestingly, it was Dwan who overturned a large deficit in the session to take a $726,000 lead with 20,000 hands played of the scheduled 50,000 match. Antonius may now revert back to shorter sessions where he dominated the match until the longer session.

Dwan is something of a phenomenon in poker. He is a player of great skill and at 21 was already an online poker legend. He built up his bankroll quickly and became a feared player, due to his hyper aggressive style, in the biggest cash games against some of the best players in the world. He famously outdrew Phil Hellmuth to knock him out of a heads up tournament ending in another Hellmuth rant where Dwan continually challenged him to a heads up match at any stakes he liked. Hellmuth accepted but the match never took place. Often criticised is Dwans gambling nature which sees him endure massive swings each week. If you read some of the high stakes match commentaries published online each week he is normally either the biggest winner or the biggest loser. He plays a risky style with major conviction that he has the skills to be a long term winner. So far that has been the case with huge wins each year.

British pro Dave “The Devilfish” Ulliott may be a player keen to challenge Dwan in London later this year. Devilfish is a skilled heads up player who has an excellent record in heads up matches against the likes of Sammy Farha and other top players. Phil Ivey may also play, if the schedule fits in with his WSOP preparation, and the $500,000 will be no problem to him. Players like David Benyamine and possibly Patrik Antonius himself are a possibility.

Some of the more unlikely may be Illari “Zigmund” Shahmies, another big online winner or the very outspoken Luke “Fullflush1” Schwartz who claims to be the best player in the world. Phil Hellmuth may be tempted by the T.V. exposure to make an appearance both for himself and his poker brand, Ultimate Bet.

One thing is for certain that with Dwans style of play these matches will be amazing viewing for poker players and you should definitely look out for more updates and tune in. Hopefully Zigmund and Fullflush1 will showcase pokers top young talent and make a name for themselves in live poker.

By Malcolm Clarke

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Tags: bwin, durrrr, live poker, online poker, patrik antonius, phil helmuth, poker, tom dwan