A: Tom Dwan was one of the biggest success stories of the 'poker boom' that was started when Chris Moneymaker won the 2003 World Series of Poker. Tom Dwan, the pin-up boy for the online aggro generation, took on Hellmuth in yet another hand where all the chips were over the line. It’s hard not to love Hellmuth in some way, even if you don’t like him, but everyone seemed to love Tom Dwan on his way up the ladder, including legions of online poker fans.
- Tom Dwan was born on a Wednesday, July 30, 1986 in Edison. His birth name is Tom Dwan and she is currently 34 years old. People born on July 30 fall under the zodiac sign of Leo. His zodiac animal is Tiger.
- Poker icons do not come any bigger than Tom Dwan, the 33-year old New Jersey legend spending a decade and a half at the forefront of the game and involved in some of the biggest stories to ever.
- We would like to show you a description here but the site won’t allow us.
Tom Dwan
An American professional poker player who played in the highest-stakes No-Limit Texas hold’em and also played Pot-Limit Omaha games online. Playing with the screen name “durrrr” primarily on Full Tilt Poker. This professional poker player is known as Tom Dawn. Dawn has participated in live poker tournaments and won prize money. He also made an appearance on NBC’s National Heads-Up Poker Championship, the 3rd, 4th and 5th seasons of Full Tilt Poker’s Million Dollar Cash Game, the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th seasons of Poker After Dark, and the 5th and 6th seasons of GSN’s High Stakes Poker.
With a $50 bankroll, Dwan’s online poker journey began. He started his career by focusing on sit-and-go tournaments, later on changed to multiplayer cash games then to heads-up cash games.
According to a site that tracks high-stakes online poker, HighStakesDB.com, on Full Tilt Poker in 2007, Dwan accumulated $312,800 and in 2008, accumulated $5.41 million. Dwan claimed to have lost before the 2007 World Series of Poker (WSOP), at the time, over a four-month period, he had lost $2 million of his $3 million bankroll. Within one year, he has already recovered from his loss. Dwan lost more than $3.5 million in January 2009, which in six months he recovered. However, Dwan suffered his then-largest downswing from late October to late December 2009, where he lost to Phil Ivey, Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies with approximately $2 million and $5 million to Swedish professional Viktor Blom.
In the middle of November 2009, Dwan was challenged to a series of heads-up No Limit Hold’em cash games by Blom. Blom began his intrusion on online high stakes cash games in late October, when he primarily lost $1.1 million to Patrik Antonius, Brian Townsend, and other high-stakes players. Blom had revived his losses by the beginning of November and dared Dwan to a heads-up marathon. This marathon required playing six tables at a time. The game was approximately over a million dollars in play. With his victory of winning approximately $5 million from Dwan by the end of the week, Blom had gone on the biggest run in the history of online poker. This made Dwan issue a live challenge to play against Blom at the Full Tilt Poker Durrrr Million Dollar Challenge.
In 2009, HighStakesDB.com had reported that Dwan lost $4.35 million putting his total online poker profits since January 2007 at Full Tilt at roughly $1.4 million at the end of 2009. In December 2009, after stepping down in limits following his loss to Isildur, HighStakesDB.com reported that Dwan won $2.7 million. Dwan had recouped his 2009 losses within the first few months of 2010; he was reported that he won $1.6 million from Sahamies in an exceedingly two hours, and was ahead $7.3 million during the same year on April 21. He was left ahead about $3.3 million for 2010 because in the next three weeks, Dwan lost about $4 million.
Previously in the fourth season of Full Tilt Poker’s Million Dollar Cash Game, a televised live game, Dawn had won the largest pot and held the record for the largest pot won at about over $1.1 million. The previous record in the fifth season of High Stakes Poker with over $919,000 was also won by Dwan. Dwan has spent a lot of his time taking part in high stakes cash games in Macau and Manila in 2016.
In recent years, he has favoured short-deck hold’em and abandoned customary Texas Hold’em. He said that he viewed poker as more of a game than a sport, according to a 2018 interview with Poker News. He was also uninterested in what he saw as the constant staredowns several players used.
Table Of Contents
'I think this might be the only podcast I've ever done.'
After 80 minutes of enthralling conversation, this wasn't the biggest takeaway fans had from Brandon Adams' recent podcast with poker legend Tom Dwan, but it certainly was one of the more surprising.
The pair naturally spent time on poker, including Dwan's origins and mental approach to the game, but also touched on the election, the US economy, and the status of legalized online US sports betting.
You can check out the podcast episode for yourself below.
Dwan on High Stakes Poker
Having recently played in every session of the new High Stakes Poker, Dwan reminisced about his first experience playing on the show.
'The first few times I played High Stakes Poker, I think my no-limit game was quite a bit sharper than most peoples. And the gap was pretty big. So I was able to get away with playing a bunch of hands. Plus it was fun and obviously, it was my first time playing on TV. I was trying to play more hands and everything worked out.
'When I was bluffing, it would work out. When I had it, people would pay me off. I just ran really well. Now a lot of people’s no-limit games are sharper; I haven’t played much no-limit lately so my game isn’t super sharp. But these are deep-stacked games and sometimes, people use goofy sizes.'
Related: 'Tom Dwan Is Not Kidnapped and Not Part of the Triads'
First Taste of Live Poker
Dwan said that his first experience of live poker was at the Vic in London, which hosted the European Poker Tour stop for the first five seasons. He subsequently went to the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure where he encountered Jean-Robert Bellande.
'I was watching him playing $25/$50, and in a single-raised pot, he called 20k in a 70k pot with ace-jack on a jack-high board.
'I thought to myself 'what is this idiot doing'! And then he won the pot! Coming from online where this never happened, I started thinking: 'maybe I should start learning about this live poker thing'!'
WATCH: Tom Dwan - 'The Games in Macau Are A Little Bigger Than They Used to Be'
Dwan the Student
With over $3m in live earnings according to The Hendon Mob, Dwan admits his transition from online to live had a learning curve to it.
'Back then it wasn't easy to get high-level poker education. I knew I had played more hands in the last year than the guys [at the table], and there were certain strategic things or concepts that I knew better, but I tried to learn from a lot of the people playing live stuff that they knew that I didn't.'
'Back then it wasn't easy to get high-level poker education...'
This included live tells, an alien concept to an online crusher, as well as the problems that boredom has on a live player at the table.
'Things like where you don't get a hand for an hour, so you bluff it off. Because you're not multi-tabling at home more comfortably.'
Dwan says that if someone came up with a new game, he'd be good at it. But the learning process was the important part.
'How good you were at a new game wasn't important day one, but it's how fast you learn and pick up from other people.'
If you're enjoying PokerNews live updates from this event, be sure to check out our sister site Oddschecker US, an all-inclusive sports betting portal offering odds, tips and offers from sports including football, basketball, baseball, hockey, and soccer
The Future of Poker
Tom Dwan Net Worth
Before the pandemic, Dwan had switched his attention to live short deck with some 'pretty big' short deck games going on for a while. However, his days of grinding for an entire day may be behind him.
Read More: Where You Can Play Online Poker In Pennsylvania
Tom Dwan Twitter
'Over the last few years I don't feel as sharp after 20-30 hours as I used to, but I also haven't played that many long sessions. So it's probably part of it. I'm more out of practice. I used to have those much more regularly.'
As well as playing, Dwan still keeps an eye on legislative developments, especially in the United States. He believes there is an opportunity for sites to expand, as long as they police bots and cheaters 'aggressively.'
'I think there's a large opportunity coming with the US opening up'
'People in the US love poker and they haven't had an easy way to play since Black Friday. I think there's a large opportunity coming with the US opening up. If sites police it well, I could see there being somewhat of a golden age. Maybe not quite as much as the first...'
Dwan repeated the concept of a 'golden age' on numerous occasions, especially as part of the wider legal gambling space that poker could be a part of.
Tom Dwan High Stakes Poker
Related: Online Poker in Michigan: Who Will Be There from the Start?
Is Tom Dwan Married
'Sports over the next few years...it's pretty unlikely it doesn't play out. There are different scenarios where it could be bigger or smaller. But with poker, a lot depends on how aggressive the operators are on how to level the playing field, and there's not one answer.
Tom Dwan 2020
'Hopefully it happens, but we'll see. It's still undecided, but if it happens there could be a really good spot for poker in the next few years'