above average winning reg doesn't astutely describe dwan as rightfully #1 in the world post moneymaker, '04 to uigea, and top 3 with galfond and cts for 2 years after.

I always found the impressive thing about Dwan to be that he absolutely crushed the HS poker, PAD games. Though the line-ups were usually pretty soft, you always had Ivey and Antonius in there and it was usually limited to 1-2 real fish (Safai, Meltzer, Elezra). Durrr completely annihalated those games playing like a 50%VPIP, never folding to 3bets. Def agree he should be considered a scammer though

Thought the episode in general was a bit less than the last one, but still pretty good. And the last one was elite so pretty hard to top

What has Blom done for Poker?

Ya I agree with this and believe Doug was off and thought that when he described it on the show.

Was not Dwan widely considered THE BEST from 2004-2005ish period all the way until he started playing the rail heaven games.He played those games because he crushed the prior years right??

But at same time as Doug pointed out it does not take away from what happened with this challenge.

I agree with Doug in his latest post , it's just a fine of what regard we choose to hold him to in terms of absolute skill. Remember though folks, who made the most back then did not correlate to who was the best. It was not even close. This even holds true today but not close to the same extent. The guy that figured out to EXCLUSIVELY bumhunt 50/100+ first made millions and millions. Friend of mine was quick on this and "no one" knows who he is. He had several accounts open sitting 100/200 at ipoker up to 300/600 and same on betfair etc. And there were lots of guys who didn't play the stakes that were better than him. If you been sitting there forever -> people think he is better than he is and thus he's left alone for the most part. Compared to shottakers.

My last post on this

[QUOTE=TouchOfEVil;50537530]

Hi TouchOfEVil:

I want to make a couple of comments and thought I would use your post to help me do so.

This is a good point. While opinions will differ, what's important is that all of these videos that Doug is doing be close in quality. And I think that's the case so far.

I'm not as up on these games as some people here are. But I can't help but wonder if the strategies that durrr used just happened to be exceptionally good at extracting money from weak players.

Poker has a large short term luck factor, and this is especially true when comparing it to some athletic sports. And, I've always been of the opinion that when an excellent player runs good he can win a lot.

I also question the speculated need for strong bankroll management in this particular spot. If Durrr had a big edge against weak opponents, his bankroll requirements go way down. Many players today see how big the swings can be in certain games, but that's because even if they're experts, if most of their play is done against other experts the bankroll requirements go up because their win rates, in terms of units won, can be fairly small.

I view a lot of this stuff like a chain letter. If you ask a typical person about a chain letter, they will tell you that it is no good. But that's not true if you can get in early in the chain letter process. So when you say that Durrr was in the right place at the right time, I agree completely, and it looks like he may have understood this better than virtually everyone else and made the most of it.

Best wishes,
Mason

Wait, what? Would you say "Hank Aaron swung a bat in a way that just happened to be exceptionally good at striking the ball soundly?" Would that make sense?

I think he just meant that durrrr was good at crushing fish, but not at playing actual good regs.
Kind of like Phil Hellmuth being able to win so many bracelets wrecking weak fields at WSOP but getting crushed if he sits down with basically any pros.

Yes you would. There are ballparks that are more prone to give up home runs than others and even in that bunch some favor a right-handed hitter over a left-handed one.

I guarantee that a home run hitter hitting in a park more prone to give up home runs because of air density or specifically to someone hitting from his side of the plate because of things such as wind-flows or the distance to the fence or even the type of opposing pitcher that day is going to adopt a style (e.g., pulling the ball) to maximize that advantage on that day.

I'm enjoying your videos, but find it a bit disingenuous for you to spend the majority of your last video talking about Dwan and then complaining that most of the comments following your posting of that video turn out to be a discussion of Dwan. Isn't that the purpose of the thread? To discuss the subjects referenced in your latest video?

I guess I have just seen the road that this line of conversation goes down and I find it to be a bit of a waste of time. I think the other subjects from the episode are more interesting.

If people want to have the same convo as always by all means, carry on.

My question is: Did Jungle ever get is escrow back from Ivey for the Durr challenge? Or is the $ still locked up?

I dont get all the hair and clothes comments. Why do supposedly hetero males care what another hetero male looks like?

pretty sure Brandon Adams let durrr guest speak/answer questions in his econ class at harvard. around '06 or '07 BA wrote a blog post saying he'd forever stake 5 players no matter what. the list included Galfond, Schulman, two other guys, and Tom who was having 7-figure days playing 3/600 on ftp.

i have a feeling if Tom

- didn't scam jungle
- wasn't as arrogant

there'd be tons more stories told about how good he was compared to his competition.

I choose to remember HSP-Durrr and online-Durrr as two different people.

I remember good winning but not amazing 25/50 regs like Ansky taking shots at durrrr at 200/400 around 07/08. I don't think he was that good compared to the competition. Even me who never played above 2/4 could see that folding 0% to 4bets 100BBs deep was a huge fundamental leak.

Yea I think this is when Dwan gained 'legendary' status among poker players. There's no way if you threw another online crusher in those lineups they'd have replicated Dwan's success that quickly while playing every other pot.

well maybe we can just assume people saying that are not heterosexual, nothing wrong with that but probably is the case

so you think other online crushers couldn't go on a heater while playing super high vpip against mainly weak regs and whales?

Dunno if anyone said anything already but when Doug is talking about WSOP Main Event winners there's a picture of Yang when he's talkin about Gold and then a bit later a picture of Gold when he mentions Yang. Is there a joke there or just a mix-up?

I've always assumed that FTP promised to payout some if not all of the challenge winnings and that's why he bailed on it.

If I were forced to arbitrate it would result in Tom paying Jungle an amount, but if the above circumstance was reality, is it really a pure scam?

I understand the escrow situation, but if ftp was going to pay, they might not bother sending money to cover one ftp pro to another rostered pro. Lying about is unacceptable regardless tho

How hard would it have been for jungleman to get a hold of phil ivey and make sure dwan escrowed the money?

i am not defending dwan and dont know what dwan and his relationship was like but 1.5 million is a lot of money to just take someones word that they sent it to ivey.

also, why didnt ivey hit up jungleman right away and be like hey, he never sent the cash? like ivey didnt know they started the challenge? yeah right.

the blame falls on all three, not just dwan.

Bingo, that would have been my guess too

Yeah I always wonder this too, I never see it mentioned. It would be pretty ****ed up if Jungle didn't at least get his $500k back.

Damn you know more about this complex issue than jungleman or durrrr. If you spoke up a couple years ago this whole thing would've been sorted.