The Durrrr Challenge Coming to a Close

What started out as one of the most anticipated online poker events in history quickly fizzled when the participants -Tom Durrrr Dwan and Patrik Antonius-as well as the poker fans realized just how long it would take for two very busy poker players to play 50,000 hands of poker against one another. After having trouble coordinating their schedules everyone started to realize that the Durrrr Challenge match was likely to take over a year to play, and equally as likely to be called off at some point.

Well the two players -to their credit-stuck it out, and are now heading into the home stretch of the match with about 12,500 hands left to play. Tom Dwan has a commanding lead over Patrik Antonius up about $1.8 million.

In addition to the losses suffered at the tables, the loser after 50,000 hands are completed will have to pay an additional pre-determined amount to the winner: The stipulations of the agreement were that should Tom Dwan win the challenge the loser would pay him an additional $500,000. However, should Dwan lose the challenge he would pay the winner an additional $1.5 million! So basically, Dwan was laying 3-to-1 odds on his ability to beat the best poker players in the world heads-up, and at this point it seems like the decision was a smart one!

For a long time the match was very back and forth with both players taking small leads over the other. All that changed when Antonius went on a mega-heater, and Dwan was on a severe downswing, in late 2009 and he took a pretty substantial lead in the challenge match. However, in 2010 it’s Dwan who is on a heater and Antonius who is struggling, and the challenge match sessions have gone the same way.

For Patrik Antonius to overcome Dwan’s current advantage he’ll have to win about $143 per hand! This could cause one of two things to happen: Antonius could start making more “moves” to try to win the match (which would be a $2 million swing in addition to the $2 million he would have to win at the tables) but this could cause him to lose far more than the additional $500,000 he will owe Dwan as the loser of the match. The second scenario would be for Antonius to basically concede the match and continue playing his typical game trying to cut his losses as best he can.

So basically, Patrik must decide at this point if he wants to go for it, and try to overcome what is almost (ALMOST) an insurmountable deficit; a strategy that could compound his losses. Or, if he should simply call it a day and try to as much damage control as possible.