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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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Featured November Nine Player Cuong Soi Nguyen

Cuong “Soi” Nguyen is an amateur poker player and the oldest of the November 9 finalist at the 2010 World Series of Poker. The 37 year old native of Santa Ana California has managed to take a seat nobody expected. Nguyen is medical supplies distributor, and has friends who play on tour and learned from them and playing with regular joe’s. Cuong Soi Nguyen is going to the finals with little to no experience, but that doesn’t mean he will lay down for the party, he intends to crash it. Many would argue it’s bad for poker to have him here, but he earned it so the sponsors and everybody will just have to accept it.