Tom Dwan is Back!

If it feels like a while since you last saw Tom Dwan doing what he does best (i.e. doing off millions on TV tables), that’s because it has been a while. He didn’t show up on the small screen for most of last year, and going back further, has been largely tied up in various high-stakes cash games in Macau.

Possibly literally. Whenever a poker player disappears for a bit, the internet always throws up a couple of alternative histories which get bruited about the forums and chatrooms of 2+2 until the player in question comes up for air. There were even rumours that Durrrrrr was chained up to a radiator in a Triad safe-house, only seeing outdoor lights when he was mini-bussed to the casino and made to play badugi while bound up on a leash of human ears.

Ever since Black Friday he’s had something of an image problem, never the most articulate or talkative player, he was suddenly pushed into the position of having to defend Full Tilt, his sponsor, as the more flagrant of its violations began to bubble up through the greywater-spill of Black Friday.

Then there was the controversy of the Junglemanmatch, and the question of whether or not he even paid into the escrow held byPhil Ivey.

In Tom Dwan’s case, the reappearance won’t have done much to quell the rumours a fact that Doug Polk plays with in his recent hand breakdown from Durrrrr’s spectacular return to TV in the Macau Billionaire Poker Tournament. Check that out for some interesting analysis of a heads-up hand between Dwan and internet pro Fish2013. The hand and commentary tease out some of the distinctions between hand equities against foes of differing strengths. Plus, Doug can’t quite resist taking an amusing dig at poor Tom with a nine-minute set-up for a gag that is worth the wait. Come for the hand analysis, stay for the subtitles.

So Tom Dwan may be back with all his fingers intact and not too much of a Patty Hearst vibe, so one imagines his mother – at the very least – is breathing a sigh of relief, but although he has finally reappeared, that has done anything to de-grist the rumour mill. I’m sure we’ll have more on Tom as and when he shows his face again.