Tom Dwan Second Best

Full Tilt Pro Tom ‘durrrr’ Dwan is regarded as one of the best poker players in the world but has made his living almost exclusively from online and live cash games, rarely playing tournaments at all. However, after making a whole host of enormous WSOP bracelet bets with famous high stakes gamblers Phil Ivey, Howard Lederer, Daniel Negreanu, Huck Seed, Eli Elezra and more Dwan is intent on capturing his first WSOP bracelet this summer.

It appeared that yesterday was going to be his day as he made it to heads-up in event #11, $1,500 No Limit Hold’em against New Zealander Simon Watt. $614,218 was reserved for the winner – but for durrrr there was much, much more on the line. Reportedly, he stood to win approximately $5,000,000 extra from his numerous sidebets – with around $2m of that said to come from Elezra’s pockets alone.

It was a huge relief to the high stakes community when Watt managed to see home his heads-up chip lead and win the event. A watching Mike ‘The Mouth’ Matusow – who also had money on the line – congratulated Watt, saying ‘They’re going to put you on the wall at Binion’s. Here’s Simon – he stopped every high stakes gambler from going broke.’

Instead, Dwan had to make do with the $381,885 runner-up prize.

Negreanu used his Twitter account to voice his relief. ‘Congrats to Tom Dwan! We were all rooting for you….To come second! Wow I escaped. What a sweat that was.’

Despite the disappointment, Dwan is already back in the Rio’s tournament room trying to go one step further and claim his first WSOP bracelet this summer. And while he has such a huge financial incentive to win, don’t count against him doing it.