A lot of players download Full Tilt Poker with the hopes that one day they will have the bankroll to challenge Tom Dwan, whose Internet screen name is “durrr”. Born in 1986 in New Jersey, Dwan has quickly made himself a household name in the poker world. He usually plays online, so it makes sense that most of his success has come online. He’s starting to turn heads in the brick-and-mortars recently, however. He has participated in several live tournaments since becoming legal in the U.S., and he has appeared on a wide variety of poker television shows.
Dwan’s first real money poker was played on Paradise Poker, one of the best poker sites back then. He started playing $6 sit-&-go’s, but eventually he switched 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 download Full Tilt Poker and play incredible volumes. Because of this, his bankroll ballooned as he moved up in stakes.
Being the cream of the crop does not mean your game is immune to variance. Dwan’s favorite game is heads-up NLHE or PLO, so the large swings in his game are pretty much inevitable. He has both won and lost millions in a single session. His most famous downswing was courtesy of a player from Sweden called “Isildur1”, who challenged him to a gruelling heads-up match on multiple tables. By the end of the week, Dwan’s bankroll was around $5 million poorer. Losing that much money would cause me to give up poker and just start playing Craps online, but Dwan has obviously proven that he can handle the mental challenge poker provides.
In January 2009, Dwan announced his $1 million challenge. He will play anyone except Phil Galfond heads-up, and the rules are that they must play 4 tables at once and a total of 50k hands. Any player up money after 50k hands would receive an additional $1.5 million from Dwan, but if Dwan came out ahead, that player would have to agree to give Dwan $500k. Players wanting to challenge Dwan must first use a Full Tilt referral code and make a poker deposit.
To date Dwan has cashed for around $1.5 million in live tournament poker. He has cashes all over the world, including in the EPT, the Aussie Millions, and of course the WPT and WSOP. His best WSOP finish was last year in a $1,500 No Limit Hold’em event where he finished 2nd for $381,885. Many players breathed a sigh of relief when Dwan did not win a because it’s reported that there were a lot of bracelet bets for and against him in 2010. Some people earn a Roulette bonus for their gambling fix, other people make WSOP prop bets.
Dwan always had respect from the online pros, 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! We can only expect more great things in the years to come, too. If this article has inspired you, forget your Blackjack download and get a poker download – it’ll be time well spent.
