Poker From The Rail
a Poker Blog brought to you by Full Tilt Poker
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
The 2011 World Series of Poker is upon us. The first “open” event will begin in a few hours with the $25,000 Heads Up World Championship and we will officially be underway in the Rio. It’s become a custom around these parts to begin the WSOP by putting together a list of players to watch. Some come into the summer riding a heater, others just seem to be due a big series, and the others are just too big to ignore.
There are plenty of names which could be included on the list but no one wants to read a 3,000 word post. I didn’t include (but well worthy) were current Bluff Player of the Year leader Galen Hall, 2010 WSOP Player of the Year Frank Kassela, WPT World Championship winner Scott Seiver, or WSOP legend Doyle Brunson.
Below are some of the players I think are worth your attention this summer. The Big Guns, Honorable Mentions, and Sleepers.
Tags: 2011 World Series of Poker, AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, Daniel Negreanu, Erik Seidel, Eugene Katchalov, John Juanda, Jonathan Duhamel, jungleman12, Phil Hellmuth, Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan, Vanessa Selbst, Vivek Rajkumar, WSOP
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
Fans of the big online poker games were once again drawn to the tables for the durrrr Challenge 2 when Daniel “jungleman12″ Cates sent out a short twitter message saying they were starting up a new session. Before the players could even kick things off the rail was deep with fanboys, media, and the requisite beggars. After six hours of play and nearly 3,000 hands, Cates would put add a huge amount of money to his lead. Dwan’s deficit was hovering around the $100,000 mark for most of the session but lost some critical hands late to put himself another $319,000 in the hole.
There were a few fireworks early as the “small” stacks of $40,000 each were run up to the point where each was fairly deep on all four tables and they settled into the grind. Cates was up early and would extend upwards to a $250,000 lead but Dwan would punch back a few times to pull almost even at one point. Dwan made several obvious adjustments to his game but it seemed to prevent the inevitable. More than 1/3 of the challenge is complete (17,108 of 50,000 hands) and Cates lead has been extended his lead to $820,000 making a tough hill to climb for Dwan.
Table 13 was the hotspot throughout the session. 14 hands topped the $100,000 mark and half of those occurred on Table 13 including the biggest pot of the night. Table 11 was the biggest winner for Cates with him having in excess of $300,000 for the latter parts of the session and alone accounted for $227,000 of his profit on the evening. The session started at 21:30ET and six hours later the damage was done.
Table 10: 514 hands, Cates $79,606
Table 11: 740 hands, Cates $227,000
Table 12: 693 hands, Dwan $58,412
Table 13: 699 hands, Cates $147,236
Table 14: 265 hands, Dwan $77,799
You can find all the relevant facts, replays, and stats on the durrrr Challenge 2 stats page. Here are few of the major hands during the latest session (click the images to enlarge).
5. The fifth biggest pot of the session will be tough to decipher since we don’t know exactly what durrrr was holding but we can always speculate. Cates opened the action with a min-raise on the button and was repopped by Dwan. Cates flat called the 3-bet preflop to see the board run out 4d 3s 2h prompting a $3,200 bet by Dwan into the $4,800 pot. Cates raised to $8,800 was called and Dwan then checked the Ks on the turn. With the pot sitting at $22,400, Cates bet out $17,200 and got another call from Dwan leaving Cates with just $37,294 behind. Those chips went into the middle when Dwan checked the Ace of diamonds on the river.
We won’t know what Dwan was holding but he called the $37,294 (into $94,094) to see Cates show 44 for the flop set and $131,000.
4. The fourth biggest hand stuck to the script preflop. Cates min-raised on the button and saw a flop after Dwan called. 7c 2s 4s flop brought out a few fireworks as Dwan check raised to $4,400 only to see Cates fire another bullet up to $9,200 which was just called. The 6d on the turn made for an interesting looking board that Dwan just check/called Cates $16,800 bet, again leaving a player with less than the pot in front. The 5h prompted Dwan to shove them in with a call from Cates.
Dwan’s TPCK (top pair, crap kicker) added a gutterball on the turn which got there on the river. We have no idea if he was good the entire way but he was able to drag a healthy pot over $144,000.
3. That will be the last huge hand posted where we must theorize on the losing hand, the third biggest hand involves the favored “run it twice” option. Next verse is same as the first as Cates min-raises his button to have Dwan repop from his big blind. This time Cates opts to put in another raise and they created a $11,200 pot preflop, the perfect recipe monster potten. The K 9 2 all heart flop only brought out a mellow $5,400 check/call between the two but the Tc on the turn lit the fuse. A puny $22,000 pot ballooned when Dwan check-raised his entire $67,000 stack.
Cates easily called with his flopped flush leaving Dwan drawing awfully thin to just 4 outs. Even running it twice couldn’t produce the boat suckout for Dwan (rigged!) and Cates added another $156,000 to his total.
2. In order to produce these huge heads up pots the players need to have a metric ton in front and both be relatively close (try explaining that concept to a forum monkey). The second biggest hand started with Cates sitting on just over $100,000 and Dwan on $90,000. My words sound repetitive when I write that Cates began the hand with a min-raise on the button, a raise buy Dwan in the big blind, but just a flat call this time by the “jungleman12″. It was a pretty interesting 8h Qc 7c flop which saw Dwan lead out $3,200. That brought a $8,800 raise from Cates, slightly larger than the pot, and was just called by Dwan. The Kh on the turn made for a straight and flush happy board, Dwan check-called an $18,400 bet from Cates to see the river bring the 3h.
With Dwan holding just a few dollars more than the pot, he opted to check the river and Cates fired his last bullet. It turned out to be a self-inflicted wound as Dwan went running hearts (with a turned gutshot) to beat the Cates flopped 8′s up. “durrrr” pulled back over $180,000 to narrow the numbers on the session.
5. Dwan seemed to spend the entire session grinding his way back into the match only to get popped for another big hand. At one point he had scratched himself within a few thousand of even but never held on. Below is the biggest hand of the session and occurred near the end of the session. Only another 100 hands would be played after this and it accounted for the large majority of Cates final numbers.
Flipping the script, Dwan began with the button and opted for his standard pot size open only to get 3-bet by Cates to $4,800. After Dwan called his raise, they saw a flop which looked a bit like the one above. Qc 8h 6h caused Cates to fire out a bet just a little over half the pot before their friend the King of Hearts appeared on the turn. Dwan once again just flat called a less-than-pot sized bet from Cates and only $54,000 up for grabs. Cates bet $43,600 when the 3d hit the river leaving the same amount behind. Dwan came over the top and we suddenly had ourselves a $216,000 pot.
Dwan may have thought his hand was good on the turn but was instead drawing to one tiny straight flush out on the river. Cates would go on to add nearly $100,000 onto this stack after this hand and pretty much ended any chance of Dwan making up ground this session.
Some other miscellaneous crazy hands:
Unimproved aces hold up at showdown?
Cates shows how to hit your full house outs, twice
Coin flipping for $115,000 and winning different ways
Tags: AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, durrrr, durrrr Challenge, jungleman12, Tom Dwan
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
Big time poker games are unpredictable and rarely run on a schedule as witnessed over the short, volatile history of the durrrr Challenge 2 between Tom Dwan and Dan “jungleman12″ Cates. I missed the session played last week while cruising the friendly skies at 35,000 feet and would have missed this one in Nevernever Land had I not checked twitter before calling it a night. Dwan threw out a casual tweet about another session starting and sent the forum monkey world all a-twitter. Before long they were both loaded up across four tables of $200/$400 Heads Up NLHE tables firing away.
Action began fast with an all-in on the very first hand and there was plenty of action for the railbirds to enjoy. 1,400 hands later Dwan was able to book another small win against Cates to the tune of ~$25,000 but the graph is still firmly planted on the side of “jungleman12″. If the tide hasn’t shifted towards Dwan, he has at least stopped the hemorrhaging that was seen early on. Still over 37,000 left to play in the challenge so plenty of room for both sides to make strides. You can check out the durrrr 2 Challenge Stat page for the current numbers and some hand replays.
Session hands: 1,399
Session winnings: Tom Dwan $24,436
Table 9: 56 hands, Dwan $16,996
Table 10: 311 hands, Dwan $17,974
Table 11: 298 hands, Cates $42,120
Table 12: 266 hands, Dwan $125,366
Table 13: 288 hands, Cates $74,264
Table 14: 58 hands, Cates $11,206
Table 15: 61 hands, Cates $2,004
Table 16: 61 hands, Cates $6,306
Below are some of the big hands which occurred over the session.
Neither wasted any time getting all the chips in the middle, on the very first hand they shipped ‘em in with a good old fashion coin flip. Big Slick off for Cates and two red Queens for Dwan with it run twice. Cates won the first but also lost an out for the second run with the unnecessary rivered trip Kings. The second board ran clean and our first hand was big but anti-climatic.
The action didn’t slow down as they build big pots early for the massive pots later. The very next hand on Table 10 created another $80,000 pot but this time it was not chopped. Cates opened with the standard min-raise on the button which Dwan called to see a 7c 2s 5d flop. A series of raises had both players once again putting everything in the middle but “jungleman12″ was drawing thin even with the run it twice option holding top pair versus the top two of Dwan. Dwan drew first blood.
Table 10 produced one more big hand during the session and a nice cooler in Cates favor. Cates once again min-raised his button then re-raised Dwan’s 3-bet to produce a pot over $12,000. The 7-high flop brought a series of bets getting all the money in with Dwan’s 99 way behind the JJ of Cates. Running it twice did not allow Dwan to hit a two outer and Cates picked up over $114,000.
Table 11 started off fairly innocent but finally produced a huge pot. Dwan started things off with a pot sized raise on the button which Cates called. The flop was Ts 2h 9d and Cates check-raised Dwan’s bet only to see him come back over the top with a 3-bet which Cates just called. The pot was over $37,000 with Dwan having only $29,000 behind, Cates insta-shoved the 8d turn having Dwan covered by nearly $100,000. Dwan called with a decent chance of being ahead holding tens up and the flush draw but was up against Cates bigger two pair. Running the river twice did not help Dwan hit his 3/1 dog and another big hand shipped towards “jungleman12″.
The biggest pot on Table 11 was pushed Dwan’s way but could have been a little bigger. Dwan’s standard pot-sized button raise was called again by Cates ahead of a Jack-high two club flop. Cates check-raised Dwan’s bet according to the script but the turn Ace slowed Dwan down with flat calls on the last two streets. When the cards were tabled we saw Cates missed his club flush draw versus the Kings of Dwan.
Finally, yet another cooler laid at the feet of “jungleman12″ early in play on Table 13. It started off like many other hands with Cates min-raising his button and Dwan hitting the pot button. They took their time getting everything in the middle since both were holding heads up monsters. Cates was looking for a miracle during one of the two runs but couldn’t find anything to help his Queens crack Kings.
Tags: AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, durrrr, durrrr Challenge, jungleman12, Tom Dwan
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
After what seemed like endless delays, the durrrr Challenge 2 picked back up this past Friday between Tom Dwan and Dan “jungleman12″ Cates. Challenge 2 stormed out of the gates at the beginning but hit a string of logistical snags over the last few months including a few small tournaments in Europe (2010 World Series of Poker Europe) as well as some promotional obligations for Dwan. Out of the blue on Friday twitter exploded with exclamations they were at it again. I fired up the old poker engine to rail along with the rest of the world and here is what I witnessed.
The two players faced off across four tables of No Limit Hold’em heads up at $200/$400 blinds. Just over 2,000 hands were played in two different sessions with a short break in between. There were a handful of 6 digit pots but most of them were chopped up courtesy of the “run it twice” option meant to reduce variance but instead providing a ton of “oh well” hands so far. jungleman12 came out ahead in the first, durrrr stormed back in the second to put a tiny dent in the huge lead from late in the summer. Still less than 20% of the 50,000 hands have been played with jungleman12 ahead by nearly $650,000. Below are some of the big hands we saw throughout the day.
You can stay up to date with the results at the durrrr 2 Challenge stats page.
One of the biggest hands left everyone shaking their heads with both players trying to get tricky. jungleman12 was the small blind on the button and fired out a min-raise to 800 only to watch durrrr 3-bet the pot. All pretty standard action until jungleman12 4-bet up to $5,200 generating a flat call from durrrr and building a +$10,000 pot preflop. Things slowed down on the 3h 6s 6d flop with Dwan check calling Cates less than 50% pot bet. The 9s on the turn saw another check-call from Dwan leaving Cates with under $40,000 and the pot just under $50,000. The 3 of clubs hit the river and Dwan once again check-called the less than pot shove from Cates.
When the cards were tabled, all anyone could say was “that was a good flop for your hand“.
The joys of the “run it twice” option were evident in the biggest hand of the session which saw $170,000 sitting in the middle with two cards to come. The action started in a similar fashion to the hand above, Cates min-raising out of the small blind and Dwan popping it up. This time around Cates just called and they saw a Js 5d 8s flop. After a series of raises all the chips ended up in the middle creating a pot just under $170,000. Cates was holding 75s for bottom pair with the flush draw and Dwan was holding two black Kings. It was a virtual coin flip and running it twice produced a split pot. Cates rivered a spade in the first run and airballed the second.
The numbers:
Cards – %win
7s5s – 52.53
KcKd – 47.47
The only hand of the session which was all-in preflop, perhaps the players will have a weird aversion to pocket Kings when playing heads up. They built a $118,000 pot before the board was dealt with Cates all-in with 99 against Dwan’s KK. Running it twice gave the extra shot of binking his two outs which is exactly what happened. I am already prepared for the wingnut conspiracy folks with their doom-switch talk in the comments.
The second biggest pot of the session was once again chopped up between the two players but plenty of action to get us there. The money finally made it’s way to the center on the turn with the board reading Td 5h 9d 3h. Cates having Dwan covered and the pot was just south of $168,000. Cates was ahead with the almighty T8o versus the KQh of Dwan for a flush draw, gut shot straight draw, and two overs. They ran it twice with Dwan rivering the flush on the first run and whiffing the second for another huge, but chopped, pot.
By the end of the two sessions of the day, Dwan managed to pull back just ~$13,000 and is still facing a huge deficient with more than 80% of the challenge remaining. Everyone is waiting for the next big session between these two monsters and things look to be heating back up. The durrrr Challenge 2 stats page has all the information you need and will let you know when they are back running.
Tags: AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, durrrr, durrrr Challenge, jungleman12, Tom Dwan
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
Last week I had a conversation with Tom Dwan about the next durrrr Challenge against Dan “jungleman12″ Cates, 24 hours later the poker world exploded as “durrrr versus jungleman12” was officially underway causing a long jam of railbirds and internet fanboys to mob their favorite forums. TwoPlusTwo ran a live thread which is currently over 166 pages (at last count) full of the standard fare but proving the mass interest among the poker fans. We decided to ask one of the poker world’s top writers to give us his take on the latest “durrrr Challenge” between Dwan and Dan “jungleman12″ Cates. ‘Dr. Pauly’ McGuire did not disappoint.
If you get any of your poker information via the internet, you certainly will know Dr. Pauly and his Tao of Poker blog. One of the most widely read poker-related websites throughout the year but especially during the long stretch of the WSOP. He takes his readers behind the scenes to witness things most white-washed “media outlets” are unwilling, or unable, to describe. Dr. Pauly released his novel Lost Vegas this summer during the World Series of Poker and we look forward to bringing you a review in the very near future.
Enjoy Dr. Pauly’s thoughts on “durrrr versus jungleman12″:
Freaky Styley: Durrrr and Jungleman12
By Paul ‘Dr. Pauly’ McGuire
What the hell is a “durrrr” anyway?
My gut told me the word was made up, but a part of me thought that maybe durrrr had origins in dead languages like Latin or Mayan, or perhaps it was the scientific name for a breed of howler monkey. After a thorough internet search, I discovered… nothing. Indeed, durrrr is a word wholly concocted by Tom Dwan. In an interview, he once mentioned that he made up the “durrrr” moniker in an attempt to annoy the hell out of his opponents. He was spot on, because nothing can tilt you more than knowing that you’re losing a few buy-ins to a guy named durrrr, a word that when said aloud resembles the sounds that an incontinent person makes before they defecate themselves.
Dwan had no idea that would be his nickname for life as he rocketed into the spotlight as the most renowned pro since the inception of online poker. I’m sure if Dan “jungleman12” Cates knew that he was going to become the hottest thing in the industry since the introduction of Rush Poker, then he might have selected a different name. From this day forward, we won’t know Cates as anything other than “jungleman12.”
The only origin of “jungleman” that I can think of in popular culture terms is a song from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. In 1985, the Red Hot Chili Peppers released Freaky Styley, their second studio album and the only pure funk-themed album in their storied career. George Clinton, legendary front man of Parliament Funkadelic, produced Freaky Styley, which included a single titled “Jungle Man.” It barely got any radio play and has become a forgotten song in the band’s live repertoire. I’m starting to think that the Red Hot Chili Peppers /Cates connection is a dead end, because Cates was not even born when the song was released 25 years ago. So, the origin of Cates’ “jungleman12” moniker continues to be a mystery.
When Dan Cates dies, his obituary will contain a sentence about how he used to be a professional poker player who once lost over a half a million dollars in a single session to a phantom Scandi named “Isildur1.” Maybe his obit will also note that Cates became the first player to complete the “durrrr Challenge.”
I might be jumping the gun with the “first player to complete” phrase, but through two sessions (one long and the other short) Dwan and Cates completed almost 13% of the 50,000-hand challenge. At that pace, they could finish the challenge in two weeks if they grind out at least six long sessions and a dozen shorter ones. It’s also possible that Dwan finishes his match with Cates and then begins a third challenge with Brian Townsend before his match with Patrik Antonius concludes.
The original challenge that pitted Dwan against Antonius was billed as the greatest heads-up battle since 1951 when Johnny Moss and Nick “The Greek” Dandolos played a marathon match in lobby of The Horseshoe. You had to fly out to Las Vegas and go downtown every day if you wanted to watch those legends play against each other. Only a handful of people were witnesses, which is why it’s been difficult for poker historians to separate fact from fiction in that particular story and determine how much Dandolos lost (estimates suggest $2 to $4 million).
The “durrrr Challenge” is the complete opposite when you toss in modern technology, the easy accessibility of online poker, and amazing advances in tracking software. Every single hand of the challenge is being logged by computer programs and immediately analyzed and scrutinized by stoners who have nothing but free time on their hands. The “durrrr Challenge” is available for anyone to watch by simply downloading Full Tilt Poker’s software. Unlike the Big Game in Las Vegas, you have access to the biggest games online. And the best thing about getting a ring side seat? You don’t have to wear pants or maintain any semblance of sobriety to sweat the action.
In early 2009, people could not stop talking about the “durrrr Challenge.” When it first began, I had friends and family members telling me that they had been up all night sweating the action. But then reality sunk in and everyone realized that the match was not going to end before the World Series of Poker and all indications suggested that this was going to be a long and arduous challenge. Dwan and Antonius lived on different continents and the time difference seemed to conspire against them. Also with the infusion of Isildur1’s action into the nosebleed games, the two sharks decided to feast on Isildur instead of gouging out each others’ eyeballs. Flash forward to 18 months later. The two have yet to pass the 40,000-hand mark and Dwan has a healthy $2 million lead.
The Dwan-Cates matchup had lower expectations already built in after the first “durrrr Challenge” was a dud. Dan “jungleman12” Cates is not a household name (he’s under 21 and has never appeared on a televised program, which makes him virtually non-existent to a large portion of the poker community who are only cognizant of pros that they see on TV). I can understand the perception that the 20-year-old Cates came out of nowhere when he agreed to play Dwan shortly after the WSOP summer session ended in mid-July. Tournament players often draw more coverage than cash game players, and in mainstream poker media terms, Cates was off the radar even though in less than two years, he achieved a rapid rise from small stakes to the biggest games online. Cates wasn’t afraid to take shots with what he called “aggressive bankroll management.” He easily handled the jump in stakes and continued to advance instead of dropping back down. Before he knew it, he put down $500,000 of his own cash in escrow for a chance to win 3-1 on his wager if he could best Dwan over 50,000 hands.
Cates has a Chris Moneymaker “aw shucks” quality about him, which means that the average person at home watching the challenge can relate more to Cates than Dwan’s former opponent – the perfectly chiseled Adonis in Patrik Antonius. The taciturn Finn rarely said anything incendiary at the tables and it’s hard to root for someone as perfect as Antonius. If Hollywood taught us anything, it’s that we’re suckers for an underdog or flawed protagonist. Not that Cates has any obvious flaws, but anyone compared to the godlike Antonius will fall short of the mark. Maybe it’s the fact that Cates is not Antonius and not an established live pro that makes him more appealing to masses.
Cates reminds me of an up and coming rookie on your favorite team that you can’t help but root to do well. I guess we’ll find out if he’s going to be a meteor that illuminates the sky for a short period of time only to disappear into the void, or be a static star burning nightly in horizon.
Tags: AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, Dr. Pauly, durrrr, durrrr Challenge, Guest Posts, jungleman12
Most Popular Posts
- (none)
Authors
Blogroll
Recent Posts
Recent Comments
sweet!...Disclaimer
The opinions expressed by this blog and those providing comments are theirs alone, and do not reflect the opinions of Full Tilt Poker. Full Tilt Poker is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information supplied by the author of this blog nor any content contained herein.
