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It was announced a while ago that the next official challenger to Tom Dwan screen name durrrr in the Tom Dwan Million Dollar Challenge would be Dan Cates screen name JungleMan12. After a bit of speculation and hype by poker sites all over the world, the official start to the 2nd installment of the Million Dollar Challenge began early Friday morning on Full Tilt Poker.

As most everyone knows already, in order to take part in the Million Dollar Challenge, someone must put up $500,000 as a prop bet and then play durrrr in 50,000 hands of heads-up poker. Players must play four heads-up session at a time and must risk their own money. At the start of the session, a player must pick either PL Omaha or NL Holdem as their game, and that is the game that will take place throughout the challenge. At the end of 50,000 hands, if Dwan is ahead, he takes the players $500,000 in addition to the money won during the challenge. If the challenger wins, not only do they get the money won while playing, but they receive $500,000 from Dwan, plus an additional $1 Million bonus.

In this edition of the Million Dollar Challenge, the game of choice is No Limit Holdem. As you may recall, Patrik Antonius chose PL Omaha. Phil Ivey is the holder of the $500,000 from each player. Also, there are a couple of rules added onto this challenge. First, players need to add on if their stack is below 75 big blinds and can get up anytime effective stacks are greater than 250 big blinds. Also, all-ins will be ran twice in order to cut down on variance. In addition, the players agreed that they can play as many as six tables at once.

The first session between these two players began at 12:35 a.m. EDT Friday Morning and the first session between the two lasted about 2 and a half hours. At the end of the session, the players logged in 1,651 hands and Dwan emerged ahead $129,888. A two hour break then ensued and Dwan returned around 5:15 a.m. to start session two.

The second session lasted around seven hours and during that time Cates went on a massive heater. He rebounded from his $129k loss to pull even before going ahead about $150,000. Then, during the last hour of play, he ran a massive heater to pull ahead a total of $518,191 after 5,829 total hands played.

After one night, Dwan and Cates have over 11% of the challenge completed. It took Dwan and Antonius over a month to pull this off in their challenge. At the rate this challenge is going, we might be done by September. We had no clue when Antonius will finish his challenge.

Many give Cates a big advantage over Dwan in this one. According to PokerTableRatings, Dwan has lost more than $1.4 Million lifetime to Cates going into this challenge. So far, Cates has continued to dominate Dwan. Can he continue his domination? Stay tuned as we bring you more from the Million Dollar Challenge.

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Months ago, Tom Dwan screen name durrrr issued a massive challenge to anyone online willing to play him heads up at $200/$400 either Pot Limit Omaha or No Limit Hold’Em if they agreed to play on four tables or more. 50,000 hands had to be played and Dwan would put up $1.5 million against an opponents $500,000 on who would end the competition winning more money. Patrik Antonius accepted, however the game has yet to be finished with only 20,700 hands beings finished to this point. While Dwan is up over $2,000,000 in that match, the internet world exploded when the challenge got revisited recently. Daniel Cates screen name Jungleman12 accepted the same challenge, this time playing No Limit Hold’Em. We caught a glimpse of some early play in the challenge in this session. The first big hand saw Dwan winning a big pot for over $40,000.

Cates got quick revenge here. After Dwan made a 3/4 pot bet on the river, Cates moved all in, forcing Dwan to lay his hand down.

Dwan took down this next big pot with a bet on the river.

This next hand was the most interesting of the day. After a three bet preflop, Dwan led out the flop, only to be raised by Cates. After Dwan used part of his time bank, he put in a sizable three bet, putting the pressure back on his opponent. Cates went into the tank himself before making a four bet to send the railbirds buzzing. Dwan folded, and gave the big pot up to ‘Jungleman23.’

The biggest pot we saw so far took place here. The two got it all in on the turn, with Dwan dead to a heart. He missed on both runs, giving the $145,000 pot to Cates.

Cates continued his good run with a lead bet on this river.

Dwan, getting short on a table, fought back by four bet shoving this pot preflop.

A massive over ebt by Cates won him this pot of over $30,000.

Tom Dwan got some back in this hand with a bet on the river.

Two pair was good enough for Cates to win this pot from Dwan.

On the day, Daniel ‘Jungleman23′ Cates took a lead on Dwan in the challenge, to the tune of over $100,000.

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A year and a half ago, Tom Dwan “durrrr” issued a challenge to the poker world known as the Million Dollar Challenge. Patrik Antonius was the first person to accept the challenge and the first match is still underway between the two. That has not stopped online poker sensation “jungleman12″ from stepping up to take part in the challenge. The proposal was made during a $100-$200 NL game between the two. This is how the conversation went down:

durrrr: ok gg
jungleman12: gg
durrrr: y dont u take challenge
durrrr: since u never lose to me
jungleman12: i will prob
jungleman12: maybe
jungleman12: isnt bt next or something?
durrrr: i can do 2 at once
durrrr: ship ivey 500k n we will work out details
durrrr: get my aim from someone
jungleman12: ok
durrrr: i wanna crank out at least 2 of em before london if poss
jungleman12: ill talk to you over aim before doing it
durrrr: we could obv play in like 2 weeks
jungleman12: k
durrrr: kk gg
durrrr: gl

Jungleman12 would make a strong challenger for durrrr in this challenge. He has won over $2 Million in winnings in cash games on Full Tilt Poker. Of course, Dwan likes his chances in the Million Dollar Challenge format. He stated, “I think all of them actually are better over-all poker players than me — by quite a bit; I happen to think in this one area, I might have a little edge — and we’ll see if I do.”

Essentially, anyone that plays the challenge must play four handed of either NL Holdem or PL Omaha for a total of 50,000 hands. If they are ahead of durrrr at the end of the challenge, they will receive $1.5 Million in cash. If they lose, they must pay durrrr $500,000. This is above any money they win against durrrr. At present, durrrr leads Patrik Antonius in the first edition of the challenge by over $2 Million after 39,436 hands.

As he hinted during the chat with jungleman12, durrrr is considering doing multiple challenges at the same time. Brian Townsend is in line to be one of the next players to take on Dwan, but we may see two players take a crack at the same time.

Of course, at the rate that the first challenge has went down, it may be a while before we find out who will win the next challenge. We may find out sometime around 2014.

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Wednesday evening saw another healthy influx of high stakes cash games on Full Tilt Poker. To the surprise of none, the game was again full of the biggest named pros to ever play online. Tom Dwan ‘durrrr’ was joined by Di Dang screen name ‘Urindanger’, David Benefield, Gus Hansen, and Phil Ivey. In the first big pot of the day, Dwan wins a pot worth over $23,000 by rivering a straight against the top set of ‘FinnnishNightmre.’

The next hand went the opposite way. ‘FinnnishNightmre’ won this next pot for more than $20,000 with deuces full of aces, taking nearly all of his money back from Dwan.

Dwan dropped another pot in this hand. Gus Hansen made an eight high straight to win this pot after getting called on the river.

Hansen took another pot off one of his highest profile enemies witha bet of $3000 on the river of a Limit Omaha H/L hand.

Dwan got it back, however. In this pot, he made a full house on both runs of the hand for a win of over $32,000.

Dwan, however, went back in the red here. Phil Ivey took a Stud Hi pot to double up to over $23,000 with three eights.

Dwan once again took a hit, this time losing a hand of more than $35,000 to the quad aces of ‘FinnnishNightmre.’

Ivey won another big pot off Dwan in this hand. Kings were good enough to outlast straight and flush draws to take this pot.

The terrible day for Dwan didn’t stop there. In this Omaha H/L hand, Dwan called the river bet of Gus Hansen, only to be on the losing end of a scoop to a straight and a six low.

Di ‘Urindanger’ Dang came into the action here, winning a three way capped pot with queens full for $48,000.

The amazingly awful day of Tom Dwan continued in this hand, losing a pot of over $28,000 to Hansen, who won a Razz pot a queen low.

The biggest story of the big game on this day was the losses of Tom Dwan, which amounted to around $150,000. The winners on the session were Di Dang, Phil Ivey, and Gus Hansen. Hansen won nearly $100,000, while Ivey and Dang each won around $50,000.

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