Posts Tagged ‘patrik antonius’
Tom Dwan Gains Ground in Durrrr Challenge 2
December 8th, 2010
Two days in a row against jungleman12? What are the odds of that?
Tom Dwan’s original Durrrr Challenge with Patrik Antonius has been filed under “Missing In Action” for some time now, having been dormant since a brief session in August. Poker fans might have thought the second installment against with Daniel “jungleman12” Cates was going the same way, but Dwan has hit the tables with Cates two days in a row now to continue grinding toward the mythical 50,000-hand mark that will signal the end of the challenge.
The action started on Tuesday with a 346-hand session that saw a $110,000 win for jungleman12, thanks in large part to two hands where he hit the nut flush. The session, which lasted just 45 minutes, saw Cates extend his lead over Dwan to $755,000 despite the fact that the two had played just over 20 percent of the total hands required. Wednesday’s action in the challenge, broken up into two smaller sessions, was a fair bit longer at 1,440 hands. In the first one Dwan booked a $195,000 win against Cates, while the latter struck back in the second session for a much smaller $23,000 win. That left Dwan with a $172,000 profit for the day but still behind overall by nearly $583,000.
High stakes poker fans will surely be hoping for the two to log more Durrrr Challenge sessions in the upcoming weeks, but if past experience is anything to go by you’d be more likely to enter rehab for an eggnog addiction than to see Tom Dwan logging serious hours against Daniel Cates over the holidays.
Tom Dwan Sorry for Durrrr Challenge Delays
November 10th, 2010
Tom Dwan: too busy hat shopping to play the durrrr Challenge? (photo courtesy of PocketFives.com)
Lost in all the hoopla surrounding the WSOP main event final table is the complete suckiness of the Durrrr Challenge. Remember that? Tom Dwan, who we all thought was one of the most exciting young players to ever happen to the game, was supposed to be taking on the best and brightest of the poker world in a heads-up high-stakes challenge with millions of dollars on the line. But, as we’re seeing now, this thing should probably be re-named the Nevurrrr-ending Challenge.
For those of you who were smart enough to never follow this thing in the first place, the rules are this: 50,000 hands of heads-up NLHE or PLO poker, with the winner getting an additional $500,000 (if it’s Dwan) or $1 million (if it’s the other guy). So far, two players have taken the challenge, Patrik Antonius and Daniel “Jungleman12″ Cates. The Dwan/Antonius battle started back in 1972 or thereabouts, and still isn’t done. The Dwan/Jungleman12 match got underway in August of this year. They started strong, but things have completely shut down of late, with the most recent action coming back on October 5th.
But in a recent blog post, Dwan apologized for the lack of any progress, and promised to get things back underway soon. He says: “I have two challenges open, both of which haven’t had much play in the last few weeks. I was busy with WSOPE then traveling a bunch – but in the next few days/weeks I should be putting in a ton of hands with “jungleman12″.” On the Antonius challenge, he goes on to say: “I don’t know if we’ll be finishing soon, but hopefully we will, and sorry to the people watching the challenge that it’s gone on so long.”
GSN Announces Seventh Season of High Stakes Poker
October 25th, 2010
The most popular poker program on TV returns for another season.
GSN announced recently that it has ordered another season of High Stakes Poker. The show, which features the biggest names in poker duking it out with a minimum buy-in of $200,000, is the highest-rated program on the cable network, which is otherwise known for reruns of 1970s game shows like Match Game and Family Feud and keeping the career of Chuck Woolery alive with new shows like Lingo.
The network has confirmed that Gabe Kaplan will return as the show’s host for the seventh season. Also returning is Kara Scott, who joined the show last season and replaced former co-host AJ Benza. Scott’s segments received mixed reviews from the poker community last year, so hopefully the show’s producers will find a better way to use the beautiful and intelligent Scott instead of wasting her on silly interview segments.
Filming for the new season of High Stakes Poker will take place from November 18-20 this year, which is about the same time that the sixth season was filmed. The lineup has yet to be confirmed, though it’s hard to imagine the show taping a single minute without confirming that Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan and Patrik Antonius will be in the mix. Other regulars like Eli Elezra, Daniel Negreanu, Barry Greenstein and high-stakes punching bag Phil Hellmuth are also likely to return.
There are no details yet on when the new season of High Stakes Poker will air, but if GSN holds to last year’s schedule we just might get our first peek at the new action in February 2011.
Poker Fans of Both Sexes Want to Sleep With Jennifer Tilly
October 12th, 2010
Twitter confirms it: everyone thinks Jennifer Tilly is smokin’ hot.
A recent Twitter poll by legendary poker pro Doyle Brunson has provided some definitive answers to some questions about what poker fans think of the poker players they watch on television and follow on the internet.
On the subject of which poker pros fans would most want to have sex with, Brunson divided the answers into two lists. The vote-getters among male players were Gus Hansen, Patrik Antonius and Phil Ivey, while tops among the female poker pros were Shannon Elizabeth, Vanessa Rousso, and Jennifer Tilly. The poll-taker also added a note that Jennifer Tilly received votes from both men and women – no huge surprise given how much of a cult hit her lesbian crime film Bound (co-starring the excellent Gina Gershon) still is to this day.
On a more platonic note, the top finishers in the category of poker pros that fans would most like to hang out with were Phil Laak, Gavin Smith and Daniel Negreanu – no surprises there given how gregarious those three are, both when the cameras are rolling and once they’ve been turned off. As for the players poker fans would most like to kill, there were again no surprises: the top three finishers were self-aggrandizer extraordinaire Phil Hellmuth, disgraced former world champion Russ Hamilton, and bad boy trash talker Tony G.
So it seems that what people see on televised poker shows heavily influences the perspective they take on poker players – food for thought if you ever find yourself invited to play on TV or find yourself moved to a featured table during the WSOP.
New Poker Movie Debuts at Cincinnati Film Festival
October 4th, 2010
It’s not Rounders 2, but fans of poker movies have a new one to check out.
Fans of poker on film will want to keep their eyes out for Hitting the Nuts, a new poker movie debuting at this year’s Cincinnati Film Festival.
“Hitting the Nuts is poised to become the DEFINITIVE COMEDIC SATIRE of the poker phenomenon,” says the film’s website. “This project strives to do for poker what Caddyshack did for golf, Major League for baseball, and Strange Brew for hockey.”
Written and directed by Joe Boyd, a veteran of both the Second City Las Vegas and Groundlings Los Angeles comedy troupes, Hitting the Nuts tells the story of the poker championships of Scott County, Indiana, in mockumentary style. Among the characters competing for cash, a bowling trophy and entry into the WSOP Main Event are “the zealous town preacher, the aging sexpot waitress, the teenage poker prodigy, the closeted gay funeral director, and, of course, the young Amish farmer hoping to create a better life for himself, his wife and seven kids.”
If you thought that Tom Dwan’s challenge with Patrik Antonius has taken a long time to complete, consider the path that Hitting the Nuts has taken to its festival debut. From initial conception to filming to release at the Cincinnati Film Festival, the film has taken more than four years to come together – and the last 13 months of that span came after principal photography was completed.
The new poker movie made its debut this weekend at the Hollywood Casino outside Cincinnati. There will be two encore screenings of Hitting the Nuts at Cincinnati’s Esquire Theatre on October 11 (7 p.m.) and October 12 (5 p.m.). There’s no current information on a wider release, but if the film is any good we might get lucky enough to have a crack at it on DVD sometime in the near future.
Patrik Antonius Enjoys $1.1 Million Online Poker Weekend
September 29th, 2010
Happy days are here again for Patrik Antonius after a big online poker weekend.
High-stakes online poker hasn’t been in full swing for a while thanks to the glut of tournament poker options in London over the last month. But that didn’t stop Patrik Antonius from taking to the tables and grabbing a million dollars over the weekend.
The Finn played more than 5,000 hands of online poker this weekend, including a fair bit of $300/$600 Pot-Limit Omaha this weekend. Perhaps because of the lack of action caused by the big tournaments, this time around the game was played full-ring instead of six-handed or heads-up. Facing off against competition like Phil Ivey, Hac Dang and Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies, Antonius still managed to turn a monster profit of more than $1.1 million. A good portion of that came from Sahamies, who had a tilty session that resulted in more than $900,000 in losses – not all of them to Antonius.
Antonius, who had an incredible 2009 playing online poker before finding himself in a bit of a rut at the beginning of 2010, is now firmly back in the black thanks to his weekend fortune. That could change at any moment, especially if he decides to get back on the Durrrr Challenge horse, but for now the fanboys can go crazy in the forums talking about how their favorite Finn is back on top.
Finland Gov’t Opens Clinic to Help Poker Players on Tilt
September 3rd, 2010
First they invent, saunas, and now this.
In most of the world, you’d have to describe the relationship between poker players and governments as icy, at best. But that doesn’t seem to be the case in Finland.
The ancestral home of Patrik Antonius and Ilari Sahamies has recently opened a one-of-a-kind clinic and website aimed at providing assistance for poker players who have suffered one bad beat too many. It’s called “Tilt” (it’s in Finnish, so you’ll want to let Google translate it for you) and it’s for players who have gone on tilt, and are, according to a sketchy translation of the website: “guided by hatred, for example, feelings of despair and surrender”.
Anyone who “loses contact with his game management and emotions” is welcome to drop by the office in downtown Helsinki to get some help. In the future, the website will also provide a variety of resources for tilting players.
Which leads to the question of what exactly is there at the clinic to help someone on tilt? Are there rooms that constantly play relaxing elevator muzak, or videos of puppies and kittens frolicking in sunny meadows? Or maybe there’s just a kitchen stocked with a wide variety of soothing herbal teas and bongs? Whatever it is, here’s hoping the idea catches on over in North America, because an anti-tilt chill-out clinic on the Las Vegas strip could save a lot of people a lot of money and angst.
Tom Dwan, Daniel Cates Kick Off New Durrrr Challenge
August 27th, 2010
Tom Dwan is back in action and he couldn’t be happier about it.
Everyone in the poker world has been waiting for the original Durrrr Challenge to finish for well over a year now – but that’s not stopping Tom Dwan from getting to work on another challenge in the meantime.
Last night Dwan officially kicked off his second Durrrr Challenge against Daniel Cates. The duo fired up six tables of deep-stacked, heads-up $200/$400 no-limit hold’em for their first Durrrr Challenge session in the early morning hours on Friday. They played more than 1,600 hands before deciding to step away for a short break. But then, in a break with the precedent set by Patrik Antonius in the first challenge, the two came back a little while later to keep going instead of waiting another month before sitting back down.
Known as “jungleman12,” Cates, a CardRunners instructor, has run pretty well against Dwan in the past, racking up some $661,000 in wins against the online pro before this challenge began. The beginning of the first session of their 50,000-hand challenge didn’t go quite as well for him, with Dwan jumping out front with about a $130,000 advantage before the first break. But Cates then came roaring back in the second session, grabbing himself a lead of nearly $200,000 and announcing that this won’t be a pushover.
The two are actually still playing at the moment, with nearly 4,000 hands booked at this point, so it’s hard to say when they plan to stop. But regardless of the ending time, it’s clear already that this challenge will be much more interesting than the Patrik Antonius version of The Neverending Story. You can get continuous updates (and lots of Tom Dwan love) from this raging 2+2 Durrrr Challenge thread – it’s already up to 59 pages.
Patrik Antonius up $332,000 in only 600 Hands
August 21st, 2010
Patrik Antonius loving life.
Sure, poker is a game of variance, but winning over $332,000 in just 600 hands counts as an amazing session for anyone. And that’s what Patrik Antonius did earlier this week, in an epic online poker session.
Antonius has proven to be one of the best high-stakes players in the game, and consistently comes out ahead no matter who the opposition. Well, except maybe when he’s playing Tom Dwan. In his short but sweet session on Wednesday, he took down Ilari Sahamies and Phil Galfond and a few others, for a third of a million dollars.
Sahamies continued his non-Antonius-esque run, dropping $149,400 to Antonius on the night, as the two played Cap Pot Limit Omaha and 7-Game. Galfond didn’t fare much better, donating $197,563 to Patrik’s retirement fund.
Though he didn’t tangle with Antonius, Gus Hansen found other ways to get into trouble. He continued his epically bad 2010, with a $266,243 loss on the evening. His running total for the year is $1.1 million in the hole. And his 2009 wasn’t so great either.
Tom Dwan Now Up $2 Million in Durrrr Challenge
August 3rd, 2010
Let’s see what we’ve got here…yep, another winning session against Patrik.
For the second time in three days, Tom Dwan and Patrik Antonius got together for a short session in their ongoing Durrrr Challenge. Antonius booked a decent win on Sunday morning, but this morning’s session was all about Dwan.
The man known as “durrrr” took Antonius for $459,961.50 this morning in a four-table, heads-up pot-limit Omaha session that lasted just 36 minutes. Dwan grabbed four pots worth at least $139,000 each, including a $157,000 monster when he flopped top set with K-Q-Q-T against Antonius’ two pair with Q-9-8-6, to end the 182-hand session a significant winner.
This morning’s winning session might be just a blip of variance over the course of the 50,000-hand challenge, but it was the one that boosted Dwan’s total take for the matchup with Antonius over the $2 million mark. His total winnings against Antonius right now amount to $2,059,719.50. If he can manage not to have one of the biggest 10,000-hand downswings in poker history, Dwan will earn another $500,000 from the Finn.
The good news for Antonius right now is that he’s back in the black after having an awful start to the year, despite his continued misfortune against Tom Dwan. He’s been booking winning sessions against nearly everyone else he faces, especially at the shorthanded tables. Once he completes the Durrrr Challenge he should once again be a favorite in most of the games he plays. Hopefully that will motivate him to get this challenge done so that he, Dwan and poker fans can all move on.
