Let's Catch Up On The Poker Gossip

Time flies. It's been several weeks since we've posted, but that's going to change. There's way too much juicy poker gossip slipping through our fingers. So, let's get to it.

First up: Tom "durrrr" Dwan.



For those of you who haven't been following the circuit news, check this out. At the end of 2008, the guy was up over $5 million at Full Tilt.com It took him over 220,000 hands, but we think you'll agree it was time well spent.

A little background on Tom for those of you who aren't in the know. He's been at since he was 17. Last year, he launched out of the gate with a little over $225,000. He started at the Borgata Winter Open and moved on to the 2008 WPT World Championship where he came in 9th place.

He attended the WSOP during this past summer and battled off tons of other players, taking 8th in a couple of events. Then, he poured it on through the rest of the year.

Now, he's up $5 million. Not a bad stretch.

And it gets better...

Good 'ole Dwan, surely feeling quite pleased with himself these days, recently issued a simple challenge to the poker world. He'll put up $1.5 million to someone else's $500,000 for a 4-table, 50,000-hand, $200/$400 minimum tournament. If the challenger is up a $1 at the end, they get Dwan's stake.

Damn, where did we put that extra $500,000?

Doesn't matter. Phil Ivey announced today that he's stepping up to the plate (we had a feeling he'd be interested). Frankly, we're a little surprised that Tom threw the gauntlet down to Phil. Phil's damn good. We're talking "top of his game" good.

















Publicly, Phil says that Tom's got an edge on him. That's because he usually only plays 2 tables at a time (Tom's challenge is for 4 tables heads-up at a time).

We'll see. Phil and Tom have been playing against each other quite a bit over at Full Tilt. No doubt that's given him the chance to get used to Tom's style. So, he's definitely not going in blind.

Let's keep our eyes on this one, folks. It's gonna be exciting...