PokerNews Op/Ed: The Watchers

dude... the whole point of the Durrrr challenge, was Dwan wasn't getting enough action. He was having to put up 3-1 on his money just to get people to play with him.

If there are fish wanting to play him, why would he only play Antonius heads up while he's giving away a big chunk of his expected value to a player who's at least on his level.

This was the risk we took getting involved in the Durrrr challenge. It's going just as it was going to go, AND the fact that it's going this way is a good thing for poker, not a bad thing. It means there are still people willing to dump money to guys like Dwan and Antonius and Ivey.

I agree with you. When "martonas" starting spewing his money around after the WSOP ended, both Antonius & durrrr lost incentive to play each other.

Still a bust... though.

I'm still very interested in it. It doesn't bother me whether it takes until the end of this year... or the end of next year, I'll still be interested in it. And I'll still be interested, if not moreso, when he goes up against David Benyamine, who I think Dwan would crush, or Phil Ivey, which is a ridiculous matchup. As long as I'm interested in poker, this is one of the aspects of poker I'll always be interested in. You just can't consistently see these kind of matchups in many other competitive venues.

When I'm having a bad streak, I do watch the high rollers play as kind of a vacation from my grinding with benefits. Then I see these guys make some of the same mistakes, only for 10000 times what I'm playing for.

I think the only reason it hasn't done as well is because FTP hasn't done enough to promote it. They should be sending out mass e-mails, twitters, facebooks, what have you every time these two get together.

I don't play on UB anymore, but one of the features I liked was their "Ultimate Buddy" which would tell you when Hellmuth, Annie Duke, Esfandiari, etc., as well as all of your friends and favorite fish got online. This was whether you were logged on to UB or not (although I'm pretty sure it's only available through the UB client now). Then you could go running to watch the play or get in yourself.

If FT would get more active in promoting the matchup and using it to further introduce its commitment to mixed cash games, there would be more of the buzz and rabid salivating over every hand of this match you're looking for.

I'm looking forward to the Benaymine bout. No doubt that Benyamine can/will play him for a week straight without any breaks. We'll definitely see some interesting sessions between those two.