The Durrrr Challenge II: Rumble in the Jungleman

It was roughly 18 months ago that Tom ‘Durrrr’ Dwan and Patrik Antonius started the inaugural and seemingly never ending “Durrrr Challenge”.

Cut to just days ago and we would witness the beginning of the sequel to be played concurrently with the original challenge. This time it would be with Daniel ‘jungleman12’ Cates. The young high stakes pro has impressed in recent times as a player who will take on all comers. This is proven once again by his insistence in taking on the Durrrr Challenge.

Announcing via his blog and twitter account, Dwan and Cates agreed to play 50,000 hands at $200/$400 no-limit hold’em across a minimum of four tables. But of course, if they felt the urge, these two don’t mind chucking a few extra tables into the mix.

Like the Durrrr-Antonius challenge, if either player’s stack falls below 75 big blinds, then they must reload up to the full starting stack. The “Run It Twice” option which Full Tilt allows will also be used throughout the challenge.

The terms and conditions of the wager remain the same as the first challenge. Dwan is laying 3-1 on a US$500,000 bet. If Dwan is up just $1 at the end of the 50,000 hands then he would pocket Cates’ US$500,000, while if Cates manages to be in front then Dwan will have to hand over US$1,500,000.

With Cates’s portion of the bet already placed in escrow, with Phil Ivey taking that responsibility, the cards went up in the cyber-air to begin the first session which would go on to last nearly 12 hours. It took only a mere few hours of this long session for Dwan to sore to a lead of $129,888.

Playing 4-6 tables against Cates apparently wasn’t enough for Dwan who was seen, at the same time, playing 2 additional tables of $200/$400 six-handed pot-limit Omaha, playing against the likes of Chau ‘La Key U’ Giang, ‘Hac ‘trex313’ Dang, David Benefield, ‘DrugsOrMe,’ and ‘gamblegambel’.

The largest pot of the night would go to Cates when he was dealt on the button. Min-raising to $800, Dwan three-bet $2,600 and Cates came back over the top for $6,400. Dwan held back from five-betting and elected to just make the call. A flop of and Dwan check-called Cates’s $6,400 bet. On the turn, again Dwan would check-call when Cates bet $21,400 at the sight of the . A fell on the river and after being checked to yet again, Cates would move all-in for $240,000. Dwan went into the tank and called off his remaining $61,092, his cards going straight into the muck at the sight of Cates’ rockets.

Late in the session Cates managed to gather momentum and take control of the table eventually finishing with a $518,191 profit after logging 5,829 hands.

After the opening night of the Durrrr vs. Jungleman12 spectacle, 11 percent of the 50,000 hands have been completed. This took more than a month and over six sessions for Antonius and Dwan to do the same when their challenge started early in 2009. At this pace it seems that Dwan and Cates will have this wrapped up quicker than Dwan can 4-bet all-in. Stay tuned to PokerNetwork for more updates!