Countless players play on top Texas Holdem sites with the hopes that one day they will have enough skill to challenge Tom Dwan, whose Internet screen name is “durrr”. The 23 year old has become one of the most well known poker players in the world. He started as an online player on a Full Tilt download, and the result is that most of his winnings have come online. He’s starting to turn heads in the brick-and-mortars recently, however. He has been in big live events in both the U.S. and overseas, and he has been on TV on several high stakes poker shows.
When Dwan first learned to play poker, he started on Paradise, one of the best US poker sites around that time. Once he was able to beat the sit-n-go’s there, he moved to cash games on Full Tilt. There aren’t many people out there that have played as many hours online as Dwan. Becoming great at multi-tabling gave him the ability to play a huge number of hands on US poker sites, and his bankroll ballooned as he moved up in stakes.
Being the cream of the crop doesn’t mean your game is variance-free. Dwan has gone through some impressive swings during his online career, which isn’t surprising considering his main game is heads-up No Limit Hold’em or Pot Limit Omaha. He has both won and lost millions in a single session. The most famous downswing he’s had was thanks to a player from Sweden named “Isildur1”, who sat with him on multiple heads-up tables. By the time they were finished, Dwan had lost around $5 million. I think that I would quit poker for free bet sportsbooks if I lost that much money in a week, but Dwan obviously has enough mental toughness to fight through the variance.
In January 2009, Dwan announced his $1 million challenge. With the exception of Phil Galfond, he is willing to 4-table with anyone heads-up for 50,000 hands. The winner at the end of the series will also win some extra cash. If Dwan wins, his opponent will give him $500k. However, if the challenger wins, Dwan will give him $1.5 million. Dwan’s first challenger is Patrik Antonius, and so far Antonius has lost $1.8 million after 40,000 hands. Players wanting to challenge Dwan must first do a Full Tilt Poker download and make a poker deposit.
When it comes to live MTTs, Dwan has $1.5 million in cashes. He has cashes all over the world, including in the EPT, the Aussie Millions, and of course the WPT and WSOP. His highest WSOP finish happened just this year in a $1,500 No Limit Hold’em event. He finished second place behind Simon Watt for a little under $400,000. A lot of people were very happy that Dwan did not win a WSOP event this year because apparently a lot of people were betting on whether or not he would win one in 2010. I would rather play Internet slots than make crazy WSOP props like these!
Dwan had respect from his fellow online players from day one, but his live event cashes and appearances on Poker After Dark and High Stakes Poker have caused the live pros to notice him, too. All this success and he is only 23 years old! He’s sure to win some huge tournaments and make a lot of money in future years. Are you inspired now? Drop your roulette bonus and spend your time playing poker instead.
