The two celebrated online players finally reconvened on Full Tilt Poker last night. Last month Cates publically criticized Dwan on Twitter for not resuming the challenge earlier.
The pair played a relatively tiny session of 383 hands that saw Tom Dwan win a miniscule $158k. The pair four-tabled $200/$400 No-Limit Hold’em for last night's session.
Both players were cordial throughout the action and made plans to play a long session in the near future.
Dwan and Cates have now played just under 20,000 hands in the challenge with Cates still holding a massive $1.1 million lead.
As with the previous durrrr Challenge against Antonius, Dwan laid 3-1 odds on $500k he would win. If Cates ends up ahead after 50,000 hands Dwan will have to pay him $1.5 million in addition to whatever losses he’s incurred.
The Challenge hit a serious roadblock in the spring of 2011 when Black Friday made it impossible for Dwan or Cates to play in the United States, which is where they both hail from.
Things went from bad to worse when the DOJ alleged Full Tilt Poker was a Ponzi scheme because it didn’t have enough money to cover player balances. It was questionable if Full Tilt would ever run again.
Finally PokerStars settled with the DOJ by taking over the Full Tilt Poker assets in a multi-million dollar deal. The site relaunched in November but it took until last night for Cates and Dwan to start playing the challenge again.
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