Who is Tom ‘durrrr’ Dwan?
Tom Dwan is one of the most popular poker players in the world, thanks to his incredible online success. Better known by his Full Tilt Poker alias ‘durrrr’, Tom Dwan has become a poker legend and has already won millions playing online at just 23 years old.
The young American was born 30th July, 1986 in Edison, New Jersey. He first became interested in poker as a teen and at just 17 years old he created an internet poker account and deposited $50, the first and last time he would deposit! He began by playing $6 sit and go tournaments, and at one point was down to around just $14. He soon began to beat the sit and go’s however and turned his $50 into a small bankroll before turning to cash games where he realised he could win a lot more money.
He began grinding at the lowest stakes and moved up as his bankroll grew, and soon found himself playing $10/$20 No-Limit Hold’em games, often multi-tabling. At this time the $10/$20 stakes where the highest available online and he played at PokerStars under the name ‘Holdem_NL’. Since these were the highest stakes online, the games attracted a lot of railbirds and poker reporters who began posting in forums and writing articles about this player who was consistently crushing the highest games PokerStars offered.
Despite being a regular winner, these stakes just weren’t enough for Dwan and as his ballooning bankroll so he went in search for higher stakes and found European poker sites which had $200/$400 heads-up tables. Again, Dwan crushed these games and he was left with no-one to play against because the high-stakes games dried up. So again he was in need for a poker room to crave his need for high-stakes action – which is when he found Full Tilt Poker where he created an account and used alias ‘durrrr’, a name he says he choose because he felt it would tilt people.
While most players would be afraid to take on the likes of Phil Ivey, David Benyamine, Gus Hansen etc, Dwan loved it and he was a consistent winner with his crazy style leaving opponents oblivious as to whether he was bluffing or sitting with the nuts. Despite winning against the best players in the world at Hold’em he seemed to lose it all back playing PLO. However, he worked hard putting in long sessions multi-tabling daily and soon became the highest money earner in online poker.
Although he is a cash-game specialist, Dwan plays tournaments as he travels. His first live tournament cash was at the EPT London event where he finished 12th for £7000. Because players must be 21 to play poker in U.S casinos, Dwan had to wait until 2007 to participate in a tournament on home soil. Shortly after his 21st birthday, Dwan finished 4th in a WPT event for $324,244. He also had his first WSOP cashes in 2008 when he finished 8th in two events (the $10,000 Mixed event, and the $5,000 No-Limit 2-7 Draw Lowball).
2009 has been an extremely exciting year for Tom Dwan. He made a sensational challenge to any player in the world in what would be named the ‘durrrr challenge’. Dwan challenged any player to play him multi-tabling 4 table’s heads-up at $200/$400 in either NLHE or PLO. The first player to accept the challenge was Patrik Antonius, and their challenge is still continuing because of conflicting schedules. Despite this, Dwan later announced a ‘live durrrr challenge’ event which would see him playing against four opponents at either NLHE or PLO, with a buy-in of $500,000. Play will continue for 500 hands or until a player decides to quit, and blinds will be $500/$1000. Sammy ‘Any Two’ George was the first to accept, so stay tuned to our news section on how the match progresses.
As well as all this, Dwan was shortlisted for the WSOP Hall of Fame but later cut from the list with many considering he is too young to be inducted at this stage. One thing for certain though, Dwan will be inducted some day and rightly so, he has revolutionised online poker and created a whole new generation of poker players.
You can watch Tom ‘durrrr’ Dwan play at Full Tilt Poker where you will receive a 100% up to $600 bonus by using bonus code PSR100. Dwan also receives Full Tilt Poker Rakeback.
