Tom Dwan

Thomas Dwan Jr. (born July 30, 1986) is an American professional poker player who played online in the highest-stakes No-Limit Texas hold 'em and Pot-Limit Omaha games, primarily on Full Tilt Poker under the screen name "durrrr".

Dwan has won prize money in live poker tournaments and has appeared on NBC's National Heads-Up Poker Championship, the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh seasons of Poker After Dark, the third, fourth, and fifth seasons of Full Tilt Poker's Million Dollar Cash Game, and the fifth, sixth, eighth and ninth seasons of GSN's High Stakes Poker.

Tom Dwan was born on July 30, 1986, in Edison, New Jersey.

In season 5, week 7 of NBC’s Poker After Dark, Dwan revealed that he worked for McDonald's prior to playing poker full time.

He attended Boston University before dropping out after the first year to pursue playing poker full-time.

Dwan began playing online poker with a $50 bankroll.

He initially focused on sit-and-go tournaments, later switching to multiplayer cash games then to heads-up cash games.

He nearly made another in a seven-person final table, but finished again in 8th, this time in the $5,000 No Limit 2-7 Draw with Rebuys event, earning $45,110.

According to HighStakesDB.com, a site that tracks high-stakes online poker, Dwan earned $312,800 in 2007 on Full Tilt Poker and $5.41 million in 2008.

Before the 2007 World Series of Poker, Dwan claimed to have lost, at the time, $2 million of his $3 million bankroll, over a four-month period.

He recovered from this loss within a year.

His next cash was not until he was 21 years old, at the World Poker Tour's 2007 World Poker Finals $9,700 No Limit Hold 'em Championship Event, where he finished 4th earning $324,244.

In January 2008, Dwan finished second at the Aussie Millions A$3,000 Pot Limit Omaha with Rebuys event, winning A$103,200 ($90,716) and later finished in 62nd place in the A$10,000 No Limit Hold 'em Main Event, good for A$25,000 ($21,976).

Dwan finished second to James Michael Sowers at the 2008 WPT Borgata Winter Open in the preliminary $5,000 No Limit Hold 'em event, earning $226,100.

Dwan cashed twice in the first year that he could to play in a World Series of Poker (WSOP) event held in the United States.

Dwan reached the final table in the $10,000 World Championship Mixed Event at the 2008 World Series of Poker finishing in 8th place, earning $54,144.

Dwan participated in the 2008 NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship held at Caesars Palace Las Vegas, where in his first match he defeated Phil Hellmuth in the third hand.

Dwan was eliminated in the next round by Mike Matusow.

At the 2008 Five-Star World Poker Classic (the $25,500 WPT Championship), Dwan finished in ninth place, winning $184,670.

In January 2009, Dwan lost more than $3.5 million, which he recovered after six months.

However, from late October to late December 2009, Dwan suffered his then-largest downswing, losing approximately $2 million to Phil Ivey, Ilari "Ziigmund" Sahamies and $5 million to then-19-years-old Swedish professional Viktor Blom aka Isildur1.

In mid-November 2009, Blom challenged Dwan to a series of heads-up No Limit Hold'em cash games.

Blom's foray into online high-stakes cash games began in late October 2009, when he initially lost $1.1 million to Patrik Antonius, Brian Townsend, and other high-stakes players.

By the beginning of November, Blom had recovered his losses; he then challenged Dwan to a heads-up marathon that would take place simultaneously on six tables at a time with over a million dollars in play.

By the end of the first week of play, Blom had gone on ostensibly the largest run in the history of online poker, winning approximately $5 million from Dwan, prompting Dwan to issue a live challenge to Blom at the Full Tilt Poker Durrrr Million Dollar Challenge.

At the end of 2009, HighStakesDB.com reported that Dwan had lost $4.35 million in 2009, which lowered his cumulative online poker winnings at Full Tilt since January 2007 at approximately $1.4 million.

HighStakesDB.com also reported that after stepping down in limits following his loss to Blom/Isildur1, Dwan won $2.7 million in December 2009.

According to the same site, Dwan had more than recouped his 2009 losses in the first few months of 2010; he was reported to have won $1.6 million in the first two weeks of April 2010, and after a session in which he won $1.6 million from Sahamies in a little over two hours, was ahead $7.3 million for the year as of April 21.

In January 2009, Dwan issued a $1,000,000 challenge to play anyone online, "with the exception of Phil Galfond", heads up for 50,000 hands four-tabling at $200/$400 limits or higher No-Limit hold 'em or Pot-Limit Omaha.

If his opponent is ahead after 50,000 hands, Dwan agreed to give them $1,500,000 more, while if Dwan is ahead, he will get $500,000.

Regarding his challengers, Dwan has said, "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."

Patrik Antonius and Daniel Cates were playing Dwan as part of the challenge, but neither challenge was completed.

However, Dwan lost about $4 million in the next three weeks, leaving him ahead about $3.3 million for 2010.

At the 2010 World Series of Poker in the $1,500 No Limit Hold 'em event, Dwan finished in second place for $381,885.

In 2011, Dwan cashed three times at the 2011 World Series of Poker, including a 5th-place finish in the $10,000 H.O.R.S.E. Championship for $134,480.

In October 2013, Cates was ahead about $1.2 million after roughly 20,000 hands.

Since then, however, Cates has publicly claimed that Dwan has stopped playing and is not responding to his queries.

In August 2017, Cates stated that Dwan had paid him approximately $800,000 in penalties for not playing, that Dwan was committed to finishing the game, and they expected it to be completed by the end of 2018.

At the age of 19, Dwan cashed in at his first live tournament, finishing 12th in the £3,000 no limit Texas Hold 'em Main Event of the European Poker Tour's second season held in London, earning £7,000 ($12,398).

As of March 2019, his total live tournament winnings exceed $3.1 million.