The durrrr challenge and the most successful cash player of the year

It is official now: Patrik Antonius is among the most successful high stakes cash game players of the year, if not the most successful.

The Finn has been taking the durrrr challenge one step at a time and he has managed to improve his game on the go. Take a look at the following YouTube clip:

See and hear Patrik talk about the 50,000 hand PLO challenge he’s currently involved in with Tom Dwan (known online as durrrr).

The interview was apparently taken right after Antonius got ousted from the EPT’s San Remo event, and the interviewer didn’t miss the opportunity to get some inside scoop on the durrrr challenge. There were rumors in the beginning that Dwan, whose bankroll had been dealt a few 6-figure blows this year wasn’t all that keen on pushing forth with the challenge and that he was taking his time, logging a brief session every now and then just to keep the subject atop the headlines. Word even had it for a while that Antonius was displeased with the tactics and he had in fact intended to put a wrap on the affair by the time the WSOP kicked off. Apparently that had indeed been the case. Antonius confesses that in the beginning of the challenge (of which the two have completed only around 15,000 hands now) he was indeed keen on pushing things forward and he did on occasion get frustrated by his opponent’s stalling tactics.

What’s interesting to hear though is that Antonius hadn’t really had any multi table heads-up experience before the start of the challenge. He says he started playing 3 tables in January, in preparation for the challenge and that in the beginning he had trouble adapting to the 4 challenge tables. What’s interesting about this fact is that in the beginning of the durrrr challenge I had the distinct feeling that it was Dwan in the driver seat and Antonius trying to keep up – which apparently might’ve been the case indeed. One could actually feel the momentum shift as Antonius got more and more comfortable with the 4-table action and as he gradually learned the ways of his adversary.

For a while there, the two looked intent on wrapping the challenge up before the start of the WSOP. They convened more often at the four challenge tables and their sessions were longer. Just as soon as Antonius began building up a sizeable lead though, the determination seemed to have cooled off again. It is now obvious that they won’t even reach the 20,000 hands mark by the time the WSOP kicks off, and that they will probably not see any sort of action while the WSOP lasts.
Antonius says that while this far the slow pace of the challenge action was mainly durrrr’s fault, he too will slow down and take things easier. Did he just grow tired of all the pushing and prodding or does he really feel he needs to take a break from the hectic online schedule he’s imposed on himself lately?
I can’t help but ponder what Dwan’s motives are to show so little interest in getting the challenge done and over with. Some say he’s nothing but a gambler, and now that he feels he’s gotten in way over his head with Antonius.
The fact that – according to Antonius – Dwan is trying to keep pots as small as possible would fit nicely into that picture. One needs to keep in mind that this interview was probably taken before Antonius managed to build up the over 400k lead he’s got over Dwan now. Back then the swings from one session to another were extremely small indeed, nothing that either of the two players could not have covered over a single hand.
Antonius says he lost more money in the challenge when he played from Thailand on account of the passive stance he’d adopted. He says he’s learned a thing or two since and that he’s become much more efficient playing at four tables.

The most successful cash game player of the year makes it clear that his focus will remain on the cash tables. While he does intend to take part in 5-6 WSOP events (where he may even play against Dwan on occasion) he’s aware that the online cash approach is working just fine for him now and he doesn’t intend to switch gears any time soon.

Poker – a game of luck or one of skill?

With one court decision after another ruling that poker is in fact a game of skill, let’s take a closer look at this more than controversial question.
We’re going to have to start out from the premise that poker is indeed a game of skill. There are now scientific studies available to prove this and I’ll go into details on them later on. Just how big a role does the luck element have in it though? While I agree that it is a predominantly skill based game, I’d also like to know how one can quantify the element of luck.
Take a look at the following YouTube video in order to see the luck element in action:

It is about Jamie Gold (who else) squaring off against Patrik Antonius in a hand in which the latter has a straight against the former’s set of Ks.

The hand begins with Gold basically telling the others at the table what his pocket hand is. He tries to be subtle about it, but his quiet eagerness betrays him. There are numerous opinions and theories out there about just how skilled a poker player Jamie Gold is, but I suppose we’ll have to agree that in this instance he walks straight into the trap that Patrik Antonius sets him. The Finn picks up all the preflop information he needs about Gold’s hand and decides to see a flop probably hoping that it will bring along an A that will get the better of Gold’s pocket Ks. The flop brings a gutshot straight draw though, so he’s still in search of a hand when Gold commits his second mistake: he gives Antonius a shot at completing his hand on the turn by betting a small-enough amount into him. The Finn pounces on the opportunity, and sure enough, the turn brings a K which doesn’t just give Antonius the nut straight, it also gives Gold a set of Ks, a hand which he would probably never be able to get away from.
Predictably, Gold runs into the trap without a second thought, goes all-in and gets called by Antonius. What comes after this is the interesting part: the two players agree to run the river card 3 times, and even though Antonius has a made hand going up against Gold’s 12 outs, two times out of three he loses the pot.
Now then, Gold makes several mistakes in this hand and Antonius makes none. Of course, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that Gold is a lucky fellow. Not after his 2006 WSOP Main Event run it shouldn’t, but this example makes one wonder about just how much of a factor luck is in this game.

Whether or not poker is a skill dominated game is no longer a question. For years, those advocating that poker was in fact a form of gambling, kept going back to the claim that there wasn’t any clear, science-rooted evidence to support that the skill factor was the dominant one in the game. Nowadays, there are several such studies. Two German scientists from the University of Hamburg ran an experiment based on actual hand histories lifted from an online poker room, which analyzed win-loss fluctuations and players’ win-loss averages to determine how big a role skill had in the outcome. They concluded that those with a skill-wise edge over their competitors did much better than less skilled players, to an extent which is clearly outside of the variation induced by chance.

In a study aimed to offer a simpler and more convincing view on the skill factor, a couple of American researchers have determined beyond any sort of doubt that poker was indeed predominantly based on skill. They looked at a staggering number of 130 million hands played at PokerStars, and concluded that 76% of the hands played never saw a showdown. In a hand which doesn’t even allow the cards to have any sort of say whatsoever, the luck factor is obviously non-existent.
With all this in mind, I suppose we can conclude that poker is a game of skill, except when one adds Jamie Gold to the mix…