Is the Durrrr Challenge Over?

The hotly-disputed ‘Durrrr Challenge’ between Tom Dwan and Daniel ‘Jungleman’ Cates is over if a conversation posted on the 2+2 forum is to be believed, Dwan apparently forfeiting the match according to Cates – also known online as w00ki3z - in online chat with Finnish high-stakes legend Ilari ‘Ilari Fin’ Sahamies…

It has been one of the longest-running sagas in the game, the 2010 match-up seeing Cates brutally rip Dwan apart over 20,000 hands before Black Friday brought the beating to a halt  - Jungleman by this point up $1.2million.

The intervening years have seen numerous attempts by Cates to get the match finished – a $1.5million winner’s prize on the line – but Dwan has been reluctant to cross swords again, perhaps for reasons outlined in this earlier HighStakesDB article exasperating Cates and others who have money riding on the outcome… some, such as Doug Polk, even describing Dwan as a scammer…

There was some hope earlier this year when the pair played the Triton Montenegro High Roller Series together, Dwan in an interview stating:

“I’d like to play it at some point”, admitting that “it’s more on me than him” that the infamous heads-up encounter was never completed, although he also said: “hopefully there are a lot of big games and that gets put off a bit” –‘a bit’ being never it would now appear.

Neither Jungleman nor Dwan are the most communicative as far as social media go, but there’s no reason to disbelieve the online chat reported on 2+2, so it looks like fans will never see the ‘Durrrr Challenge’ completed – the only real question left being how much it cost Dwan to buy himself out of the match.