Home / Poker News August 2009 / Durrrr challenge resumes: Antonius recovers ground
Durrrr challenge resumes: Antonius recovers ground
Posted by: James Carter. - Sun, 2009-08-30 12:18
The echoes of the last durrrr challenge session have long died off, and the online railbird community has begun pondering whether or not Dwan and Antonius have given up on the issue altogether. Following a busy two month period though, during which both players appeared in several live events, the second period of the Challenge kicked off the other day, when the two protagonists locked horns once again, re-kindling the rivalry through a 2 and a half hour session which saw them log 795 hands of $200/$400 PL Omaha. This latest session took the total hand-count to 21,442 which is close to half of the required 50,000 hands.
The last durrrr challenge session the two players have had, saw Tom Dwan dart to a serious, almost threatening lead of $726,000. That lead took a rather big hit now though as Antonius has adopted a different, much more laid-back approach to the game, eventually managing to come out on top, amassing a mind-boggling $334,000 profit, and thus cutting Dwan’s lead to half.
I reckon it’s safe to say that Antonius was the dominant force at the table during this 795 hand session. The Finn took down three of the five largest pots and he looked good when it came to small ones too.
Though the pace of the action was much more cautious than during their last challenge session, the two players combined for two 6-figure pots during the first 10 minutes, one of which went to Dwan and the other to Antonius.
First Dwan made a boat to beat Antonius’ K-high flush for $120,000, but the Finn bounced right back and recovered it all only a few hands later. Dwan was quick to drop another massive pot to his foe when his straight flush draw failed to fill up against the Finn’s top set.
The following monster pot occurred about 30 minutes into the session. It was a $125,593 one, which found its way to Antonius’ side of the table after the Finn’s pocket rockets held up against Dwan’s draw.
The going got even tougher for the American from that point on, as he lost another big pot a few minutes later on account of a weaker kicker. That last pot was a $150,792 one and it left Dwan gasping for air just as bad as his table roll was gasping for a repot.
At the end of the first hour of challenge play, Antonius was looking better than ever. He was about $200k in the black and his table stack dominated Dwan’s. The American’s desperate recovery efforts were picked off one by one and he soon dropped another 6-figure pot on a busted bluff.
To soothe his anguish somewhat, Dwan did manage to exact some meager measure of revenge: he took down the session’s biggest pot, a $223,591 whooper, which was by far not enough to push him back into the black though.
