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.

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.