Durrrr Challenge gatecrashes new Omaha era - 15/03/2010

Matchroom Poker continues to break new ground in televised poker, with the Full Tilt Durrrr Million Dollar Challenge on Sky Sports 3 and HD3 tonight at 10pm with the entire show dedicated to Tom “Durrrr” Dwan and Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies playing cash Pot Limit Omaha.

Durrrr took on the Finnish star at the Les Ambassadeurs club in London as part of the challenge, where he also faced Sammy “any two” George and Marcello “luckexpress” Marigliano. Those two men dealt mainly in No Limit Hold’em against the American internet phenom, but when he met Ziigmund they played 12 fascinating hours of PLO which promises to be compelling viewing.

Durrrr and Ziigmund in action

Eddie Hearn, managing director of Matchroom Sport said: “As interest in Omaha continues to grow, we felt it was time to not only introduce people to the game but also to give current Omaha players a real treat. We matched up arguably the two best Omaha players in the world in over 500 hands of action, with perhaps the third best player in the world – Phil Galfond – providing expert analysis. I believe this could be the start of Omaha proving to be a big hit on screen.”

The pair have logged countless hours on the internet but face-to-face their match took on a different dimension after Ziigmund accepted Durrrr’s challenge and they both laid $500,000 on the table. As high as the stakes were they kept raising them as the natural gamble in them pushed the game to the limit. Starting at 500/1000 they soon doubled the blinds and did so again by the end, often that wasn’t enough and they played with two blind straddles.

It was poker played at the highest level much to the delight of those on the rail like Roland de Wolfe, Tony G, Ian Frazer, John Duthie and Durrrr’s opponent today, Sammy “any two” George. The railers certainly added to the jovial spirit despite the high stakes and on the table, with pots over 500k hinging on one card, neither the winner nor loser flinched and in between breaks in play they played Chinese Poker for $5,000 a point.

“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.”

“It was one of the toughest matches I’ve ever played in and it was great to be involved,” added Ziigmund.

The show is repeated on Tuesday 16 March at 1am on Sky Sports 4 and there are two further weeks of the contest between Durrrr and Ziigmund at 10pm on Monday nights on Sky Sports.