A lot of players make a Full Tilt Poker download hoping that if they practice enough, they’ll eventually have enough skill to challenge Tom Dwan, whose Internet screen name is “durrr”. Born in 1986 in New Jersey, Dwan has quickly made himself a household name in the poker world. Most of his poker hours are spent on his Full Tilt Poker download, and the result is that most of his winnings have come online. However, he is starting to make some noise in the live arena, as well. He has been in big live events in both the U.S. and overseas, and he has been on a number of high stakes poker TV shows.
Dwan’s first real money poker was played on Paradise Poker, one of the top Texas Hold’em sites at the time. Once he was able to beat the sit-n-go’s there, he moved to cash games on Full Tilt. To say that Dwan put in massive hours online is an understatement. Mastering the art of multi-tabling gave him the ability to see a huge number of hands on money poker sites, and his bankroll ballooned as he moved up in stakes.
Having your name synonymous with high stakes online poker doesn’t mean your game is variance-free. Dwan’s favorite game is heads-up NLHE or PLO, so the large swings in his game are pretty much inevitable. He has won millions of dollars at a time, but he has also lost millions. The most well known downswing of his career so far was courtesy of a someone from Sweden called “Isildur1”, who sat with him on multiple heads-up tables. When the week was over, Dwan’s bankroll was around $5 million poorer. The thought of losing such a staggering amount is enough to cause many players to quit poker and turn to safer games like Internet slots, but Dwan has played enough poker to realize that these swings are just part of the game.
In January 2009, Dwan announced his $1 million challenge. He is willing to play any player (except Phil Galfond) heads-up for 50k hands while playing 4 tables. Dwan will put up $1.5 million for his opponent’s $500k – the winner of the 50k series will receive the extra money. Patrik Antonius is the first person to take the challenge, and so far Dwan is up by almost $2 million after 40k hands. If you can afford it, you’re welcome to accept this challenge, too. Just download free poker from Full Tilt and make a deposit.
To date Dwan has cashed for around $1.5 million in live US poker rooms. Where live events are concerned, he has cashes in the European Poker Tour, the World Poker Tour, the Aussie Millions, and the World Series of Poker. His best WSOP finish was this year in a $1,500 No Limit Hold’em event where he finished 2nd for $381,885. A lot of people were very happy that Dwan did not win a WSOP event this year because apparently a lot of people were betting on whether or not he would win one in 2010.
Dwan had respect from his fellow online players from day one, but his live event cashes and appearances on Poker After Dark and High Stakes Poker have caused the live pros to notice him, too. All this success and he is only 23 years old! We can only expect more great things in the years to come, too. If you aspire to be as great as Dwan one day, you need to get rid of the bingo codes and get a poker download – it’ll be time well spent.
