Home / Poker News August 2009 / Durrrr challenge turnaround: Antonius back in the driver-seat
Durrrr challenge turnaround: Antonius back in the driver-seat
Posted by: James Carter. - Sun, 2009-08-30 11:54
Following the huge $300 and some thousand hit he’d taken a few days ago, Dwan was anxious to get back on the four PLO challenge tables to build some of his pre-WSOP challenge lead back. Unfortunately for him, things didn’t quite turn around in this session either, and not only did he not manage to recover any of the money lost during the previous session, he ended up dropping the remainder of his lead as well. When all was said and done at the end of the 1,241 hand session the two of them had the other day, Antonius was back in the lead, Dwan’s seemingly decisive $700k+ lead just an insignificant chapter in the history books.
The durrrr challenge has now reached its 22,683th hand (still short of the half-way mark though) and Antonius once again holds the lead, albeit a mere $76,104 one, which has been proven to mean exactly zilch in this match-up. Therefore, for all purposes other than statistics, one can consider the two of them to be tied again.
Dwan’s slide that began in their last challenge session showed no signs of slowing down during this 4-hour long session. As a matter of fact it seemed to be gathering momentum as the American’s stack hit a steeper slope. There were 5 massively large pots in this session, and out of those, no fewer than 4 found their way to the Finn’s side of the table.
The first such monster pot was a $150,156 one, and it was part of a streak of 4 such pots, all going down within a 20-minute time frame. This pot was raked in by Antonius, after his 7-high straight made short work of Dwan’s three 5s for the win.
The second monster pot came about only a few minutes later. This time, Dwan’s three 3s went up against Antonius’ three Ks for $193,460. After about half an hour of play, the Finn was already around $115k in the black and the carnage would continue.
Soon, Dwan’s battle became a pronouncedly uphill one as he stared down over $200k big stacks on each of the challenge tables.
The dominating stacks allowed Antonius to take his lead up all the way to around $500k before Dwan managed to bounce back a little and recover some dough. In a copycat move eerily reminiscent of the previous session’s desperate damage control, Dwan once again took down the biggest pot of the session, a $229,558 one.
The hand began with the customary preflop tug-of-war, which saw no fewer than five raises called. The flop then fell Q,9,2 rainbow and Antonius bet out. Dwan went all-in in response and the Finn called. At showdown, it became obvious that Antonius had made the right decision again. His pocket rockets gave him a dominating overpair against Dwan’s top pair. On the turn however, Lady Luck must’ve decided Dwan had been punished enough. A 3 came which gave durrrr two pairs (9s and 3s) and the pot was his.
