24 year old Tom ‘Durrrr’ Dwan was born in New Jersey and has since become one of the worlds brightest and most successful internet poker legends. Using his poker pseudonym ‘Durrrr’ Dwan can be found regularly playing in the highest stakes against the worlds best poker players and he manages to seemingly always come out on top in the long run.
For his 17th birthday Tom Dwan was given $50 by his father to play internet poker, he started by playing $6 sit & go’s but when he only had $15 left in his poker bankroll he went and gave cashgames a try.
This move to cash games proved to be a vital turning point for Dwan who had an amazing ability to notice weaker opponents and take their chips. He started working his way up through the stakes until he was playing in the highest online limits at $500/$1,000 No limit holdem tables with buy ins of $100,000. Tom Dwan is now well known for playing these limits and has set and achieved many records in these limits.
Those who thought that Dwan wouldn’t be able to translate his skills into live poker games were wrong though as he has successfully proved that he is a world class live poker player too. Dwan holds the record for the biggest ever televised poker hand in history, there was over $1.1 million in the pot when he won it.
In January 2009 Dwan issued his $1 million challenge to the poker community, this announcement invited anyone (except Phil ‘OMGClayAikon’ Galfond) to play against Dwan heads up in either Texas Holdem or Omaha for 50,000 hands played on 4 tables at the same time with limits off $200/$400 or higher. If his opponents make a profit on Durrr after playing for that period, he will give them $1.5 million more. However if his opponent is in a loss they will pay him an additional half a million dollars
Phil Ivey has said he is willing to take up this offer, however Patrik Antonius got there first and is currently in the midst of this epic battle. After 40,000 hands with the end nearing, Tom is in the lead for about $2 million dollars.
The next challenge awaiting Dwan is to try an obtain a WSOP bracelet or a World Poker Tour (WPT) title as he has not had much success in either of these areas, however considering his prowess and relatively young age you wouldn’t bet against him picking one of the two up soon. You can follow Tom Durrrr Dwan and the goings on in his crazy poker antics via his official twitter feed displayed here. Dwan also writes his own blog, check out this review of Durrrr's blog