28 Apr 09

High Stakes Poker: durrrr Enters The Building

The latest High Stakes Poker episode was one of the most entertaining ones, filled with bluffs and bold plays. The craziest player at the table was naturally Tom "durrrr" Dwan.

Tom DwanHigh Stakes Poker saw fireworks in nearly every episode and then a new line-up came which changed the whole game. The latest episode, however, saw Sam Simon parting his ways with the show and giving the seat to one of the most aggressive players out there, Tom "durrrr" Dwan (pictured right).

Dwan has joined the table to play against Phil Laak, Antonio Esfandiari, Daniel Negreanu, Howard Lederer, Patrik Antonius, Joe Hachem and Nick Cassavetes. Laak and Esfandiari have been the never-silent entertainers for most of the time, but in this episode Esfandiari was not in his usual "I love you guys, I love America" mood.

esfandiari missing $50,000 
Antonio EsfandiariEsfandiari (pictured left) claimed that $50,000 was missing from his stack and while the producers were busy scrambling around the tapes and trying to solve the mistery, action at the table heated up.

Joe Hachem has been one of the most dominant players so far, proving that he is capable of making tough calls and even tougher bluffs, but one move cast a shadow over his great play.

In a hand against Cassavetes, Hachem folded two pair, aces and jacks, because he assumed Cassavetes made a straight on the turn. Players agreed earlier to the rule that one card must be shown by the winning player and Cassavetes let Hachem choose one card and turn it over.

Hachem flipped one card over and then he used it to lift the other one up a bit, just enough to see a queen which gave Cassavetes a straight, ten to ace. He quickly commented that he would never look, but facts remain that he took a peak at the second card on purpose.
durrrr stirs up the action 
With durrrr entering the building, action at the table completely changed and any playable hand suddenly started to look like pocket aces. One of the first hands durrrr took part in quickly showed how slippery his play is. There were five players involved in the hand, and durrrr bet out on the Td2d5c flop holding 8c6c, or in other words, complete air.

Everyone folded except Esfandiari, who called with his pocket nines. The turn came Ad and after another bullet from durrrr, Esfandiari was confronted with a tough decision. He tried to get a read on durrrr, but the young gun seemed more amused with the table talk rather than the hand. Esfandiari decided to lay down the best hand and take a shot at durrrr some other time.

On a good note, the mistery behind the missing money was solved, as it turned out that Esfandiari did come at the table with another $50,000 but he forgot to pull those extra chips out. He did get his money "back", which allowed him to focus more on the game, but since it turned out that it was his own fault, Esfandiari remained silent for some time.

Howard LedererLederer (pictured right) opened the last hand of the episode with a raise to $3,500, looking comfortable with his AdKd. However, durrrr had plans of his own with 8d6h and raised to $11,300. A classical poker encounter between A-K and 8-6, which only happens if durrrr is in the play.

While Cassavetes and Esfandiari commented how the whole table is getting "durrrred", Lederer was thinking what to do and he decided to raise to $36,300. Instead of giving up, durrrr asked for Lederer's chip count and raised to $65,600. Lederer made the call and the action moved to the flop.

The flop came 3s2sQh, Lederer quickly checked and Dwan checked, as well. The turn brought 8h to give Dwan the best hand and again both of them checked. The river came 9d. Both checked and Lederer confirmed to durrrr that his pair is good, but he couldn't have been more surprised when he saw what pair durrrr had.

Lederer entered the durrrr land and came out with $134,000 going in a different direction than he was hoping for. Activity at the table will certainly increase in the following episodes, as there are no weak links at the table and players have loosened up a bit since durrrr's arrival.


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