Tom 'durrrr' Dwan beats Ilari 'Ziigmund' Sahamies in Full Tilt Million Dollar Challenge

Tom 'durrrr' Dwan beats Ilari 'Ziigmund' Sahamies in Full Tilt Million Dollar Challenge

Thursday, 19 November 2009

Neither tiredness nor Ziigmund could keep Tom Dwan away from victory at Les Ambassadeurs in Mayfair yesterday but both ran him pretty hard. Resuming Day Two of the Full Tilt Million Dollar Challenge, after another epic all night encounter with the mysterious Isildur1, Dwan staged a classy comeback to take the honours against Ilari Sahamies.

Both players put down $250,000 for the game, with $500/$1,000 blinds. As the 500-hand session went on, both players opted for one re-buy and the blinds climbed as high as $2000/$4000 with over a million dollars on the table.


Ziigmund had the better of the early skirmishes, forcing Durrrr to re-buy early, but Dwan battled his way back to finish the day $68,000 to the good. The biggest pot of the day was a monster $512k won by the Finn. Despite losing that huge pot, durrrr managed to pull into the lead after a huge pot went his way. There was over $60,000 in the middle when the river completed a 3d-Kd-Kh-8h-5d board; Ziigmund betting $60k. Tom Dwan raised to a huge $194,000 and Ziigmund called after a short while, showing AK73 for trips which lost out to durrrr’s KJ87 full house.


Both players seemed drained after an extremely hard fought encounter. “It was a tough game but a great one at the same time,” said Dwan. “There were some huge pots and in the end it could’ve gone either way really but after losing out against Marcello I’m delighted to have won today and I’m looking forward to taking on Sammy. I was a pretty tired after playing 12 hour the night before on Full Tilt, but I think the fact I was playing Ziigmund and that the challenge is an important one helped me through.”


His Finnish opponent added, “I played badly in the last five hours and made six or so bad calls in the last half an hour – but we played for such a long time that I was a little bit tired, but it was a tough game but fun at the same time. I was in front around 250k and Tom moved all-in, I was small favourite but Tom won it and then a few hours later the same happened with me all in and Tom the favourite but I won, so there were a lot of swings in the game. In the end Durrrr won $68,000 but really that’s nothing in this game, it was one of the toughest I’ve ever played in and it was great to be involved.”


Tomorrow, Dwan will engage in his most +EV match of the challenge as he takes on Sammy George over 500 hands of Hold ‘em.



Tags: Poker News, Tom, 'durrrr', Dwan, beats, Ilari, 'Ziigmund', Sahamies, in, Full, Tilt, Million, Dollar, Challenge