I already showed you a good play from Tom ‘Durrrr’ Dwan on Poker After Dark, but after seeing the first episodes of season 5 of High Stakes Poker, I completely understand the fuzz that arised around his person the last couple of months in poker world.

Now this play on episode two is really one of the GREATEST plays I’ve ever seen. Dwan is really in the zone and is pushing the table around like he already plays for ten years with this guys. You obviously see experienced guys like Doyle Brunson, Barry Greenstein and even Daniel Negreanu feeling uncomfortable with the presence of Dwan. A new hand starts (at 2′50″ in the video below) and the very tight playing Greenstein makes a standard early position raise with AA. Because the players to the left of Barry call the pots odds grow and it becomes a family pot:

The raise on the flop from Dwan looks kinda stupid at that point, but after he only gets called by Eastgate and Greenstein, Dwan knows he can take this pot with an enormous bullet on the turn. That’s exactly what he does and with this great and courageous bet he takes this pot in a magnificent way. Notice the relief on Dwan’s face after Eastgate’s fold, as he knows this guy had the best hand, just like he says after the hand. This is poker on another level.

I didn’t write a lot about one of my heroes Eli Elezra yet, but today I have one fantastic move from this poker phenomenon. It dates from the first episode of High Stakes Poker Season 5.

Now first of all, what an impressive personality is this guy on a poker table? I mean look at that leather jacket and that magnificent accent. You can place this guy without any problem right next to Silvio Dante in the Soprano’s . His appearance also plays an important role in the following hand (first hand to play completely):

As Gabe Kaplan already mentions, this is great body language by Elezra. After he has raised the straddle from Tom Dwan, he acts very artificially distracted on the flop, like he has indeed flopped top pair top kicker, two pair or a set. You can perfectly see the reaction on Durrrr’s face: he thinks he immediately figured out this hand and folds quickly. But Tom’s still young and has a lot years in front of him to learn from this guys .

That’s one of the basic rules in poker. If you don’t follow it, it will have its influence on your discipline and will certainly cost you money in the long run. Nevertheless does it happen to even the greatest players in the world. Even Phil Hellmuth.

It’s in that same cash game on Poker After Dark (episode 5) that Phil is creating a certain rage against Tom Dwan. It has been going on for a while already and it has costed him a lot of chips, when he collides again with Durrrr in the following hand (starts at 7′30″):

Dwan raises it up preflop again with Q7 suited again and Phil insta calls with AT off. Of course, if Phil really thinks Dwan is raising too many hands, why doesn’t he reraise here with a decent hand like AT? Mike Baxter and Guy Laliberté also enter the pot and ‘Silent Mike’ flops the nuts while it’s checked around. Dwan leads out on the turn and Hellmuth INSTA raises to 30k with the OESD. While Dwan gets out of the way, Hellmuth loses an extra chunk of his stack to Baxter this way, who’s the laughing third. This happens a lot when two players get after eachother all the time. Bad move.

Everybody in the poker world knows of course Tom ‘Durrrr’ Dwan by now, after his appearances in High Stakes Poker and Poker After Dark. It was in that last show where I saw him make a nice play yesterday.

It was during episode of Season 4, when the PAD Cash Game is being introduced. Watch the fragment yourself below (hand starts at 5′):

While Phil Hellmuth is still telling the rest of the table why he’s the best player in the world , Allan Cunningham raises it up with AT suited but the raise is too small to prevent a family pot. He does flop top pair, but Tom Dwan makes a good play there: he has a gutshot straightdraw (and 6 high) but that doesn’t matter. Tom knows here that Allan can’t call this bet with just Aces in a family pot: Dwan could have easily flopped two pair, a set or even a wheel. This is a perfect example of playing the player instead of playing your own hand.