Home / Poker News January 2009 / Tom Dwan’s $1 million challenge accepted by Phil Ivey
Tom Dwan’s $1 million challenge accepted by Phil Ivey
Posted by: James Carter. - Fri, 2009-01-09 12:41
Tom Dwan may have gotten more than he bargained for in his much hyped $1 million dollar challenge, as the person who accepted it and will be playing against him at 4 NL Holdem or PL Omaha tables at once will be none other than Phil Ivey, the person considered the best poker player in the world by many.
Dwan’s challenge included all poker players in the world with the exception of Phil Galfond. In a 2+2 forum post, Dwan gave a series of reasons why he thought playing at four tables simultaneously would be the right way to consume his challenge. Because play will take place at four tables, the likelihood of a lucky pot giving one player or another a decisive advantage over his opponent will be small.
In Dwan’s opinion, opponents’ mistakes can be exploited much better at four tables, and thus the difference between the better player and the weaker one will be much more obvious.
Dwan wagers $1.5 million against his opponent’s $500k in a game which is supposed to last for at least 50,000 hands. The person who finishes up on his opponent (even if just for a dollar’s worth) wins the wager. The money won during play will also be kept by the winner.
Dwan says he wants to play all comers, for at least a year or more.
Phil Ivey was the first to accept the challenge in a poker radio broadcast, while hinting at the fact that poker pros Patrik Antonius and David Benyamine were also considering taking it up.
Ivey has a history of accepting weird side bets in which he believes he has an advantage, and according to some online poker rumors he’s made more than $6 million playing online in high stakes cash games in 2008. That doesn’t just give him the bankroll to accept Dwan’s challenge, it also gives him the moral right to consider himself capable of rising to it.
David Benyamine is another well stacked poker pro, who is known and feared as one of the best Omaha players in the world.
