Doug Polk called the challange "one of the most massive scams in poker history"; Cates still has hopes he will have a chance to finish the heads-up challange.
Back in 2009, Tom “Durrrr” Dwan offered a 50,000-hand heads-up challenge to anyone in the world but Phil Galfond, with 3 to 1 odds – him risking $1.5 million against his challenger’s $500,000. He did beat his first challenger, Patrik Antonius. However, the next year a newcomer, Daniel “jungleman12” Cates agreed to the “duel” and after 19,335 hands took a big lead, $1,251,059.
This is when the fight between the two players came to a halt. Dwan showed reluctance to continue the challenge. Black Friday (04/15/11), when many online poker room executives were jailed and U.S. gambling licenses were revoked, made it even harder to continue the challenge. Now it has been 3 years since any hand was played.
Doug Polk tweeted about the debacle on January 15th, 2017 calling it “one of the most massive scams in poker history”. He also talked about it on his YouTube channel in a video posted in August 2016.
Cates responded to Polk the next day on Twitter: “Tom and I have been talking about this and working on a resolution. We should get some more hands this year.”
Previously, Cates talked about a penalty system to Poker Listings where Dwan would have to pay if he refused to play Cates, but even though the penalty fines piled up to $300,000, Dwan hasn’t paid a cent nor did he play a hand.
Dwan has been spending most of his time in Macau, playing live games rather than online. He was also complaining about losing the biggest pot of his life. This, and his absence on the online poker scene lead many people to speculate about the state of his bank roll. Cates confirmed on Twitter that Dwan "has had some problems".
In light of all this, it seems rather optimistic for Cates to count on the infamous “Durrrr Challenge” to continue.
