Durrrr Challenge Update as Jungleman Calls Out Tom Dwan on Twitter

It has been described as a ten-year old divorce row where one side won’t sign the papers, and the Durrrr Challenge saga between Tom Dwan and Daniel Cates reared its ugly head once again this week!

That tweet of Dwan’s, looking for Viktor Isildur1 Blom, was like a red rag to a bull when Jungleman Dan spotted it, and he quickly threw out the blast: “Hey, anyone able to get in touch with you? Let’s conclude our stuff?”

If you haven’t been hiding under a poker rock for the past decade or so, you’ll know exactly what that response refers to – the infamous Durrrr Challenge match between Dwan and Cates that Doug Polk described as “one of the most massive scams in poker history.”

A harsh assessment perhaps, but the facts are that Dwan was taking a hiding from Jungleman, $1.2million down after 20k hands of the 50k hands heads-up match.

With a $1.5million sidebet on the line, Black Friday proved to be a perfect get-out clause for Dwan, and he has been ducking his rival ever since.

Daniel has been seen chasing Tom across the globe, or at least the Twittersphere, the ghost of Jungleman still haunting Dwan whenever he raises his head above the parapet, and giving updates along the way.

“He’s been paying me penalties every two months lately,” Cates revealed a few years back, adding: “He wants me to point out he’s given me something like $700,000 or $800,000 basically in penalties since 2010.”

A post on the 2+2 forum in August 2018 saw an online chat screenshot in which Cates apparently told fellow highstakes crusher Ilari ‘Ilari Fin’ Sahamies that Dwan would be forfeiting the match “end of this month”.

That deadline came and went with no resolution, but while others might have given up on the hope of seeing the match concluded, or the huge financial penalties and/or sidebet paid up in full, Cates is somehow still hopeful.

This week’s Twitter update ended on a positive note from Jungleman...

We’ll see what happens next, but there’s a decent chance that if we are all here in another ten years’ time, we’ll still be waiting for Dwan to put up or pay up.