The 36-year-old poker legend has had it rough, working at McDonald’s before he discovered his passion for poker and turned it into a lifestyle. His biggest achievement to date, though, is the big hand he secured earlier this week at Hustler Casino Live’s Million Dollar Game, which was streamed in real time and immortalized Dwan’s $3.1 million triumph in a single round against the likes of Doug Polk and Wesley Fei.
Let’s Raise the Stakes from the Get-Go
Dwan faced a tough opponent in the final table with Fei, a cryptocurrency millionaire, keen to get the stakes high from the very beginning. The buy-in for the No-Limit Texas Hold’em cash game was set at $1 million, which is quite steep, but both Fei and Dwan were keen to participate.
The game was definitely intense, with other participants not helping the action move smoothly along. For one, Polk, a poker legend, and a World Series of Poker bracelet winner himself, said at one point that he had seen Fei’s cards causing confusion on the table. Regardless, the action carried on with Fei confident in his hand. He was holding an Ace and a King, giving him a very good strategic position regardless of Polk’s claims.
Polk though said he’s folding and he did well too. The action continued with the three remaining players on the table, that is Fei, Dwan, and another rising star player by the name of LSG Hank who was also prompted to fold as Dwan and Fei continued to bid against each other and raise continuously.
Getting Cold Feet?
The pot started to escalate quickly as neither Fei nor Dwan wanted to back down. Dwan, though, was at the end of his stack and was on the cusp of betting all of his chips worth approximately $786,000. The stress forced him to take a step back and, visibly anxious, start talking out loud about why and what he considered doing, commenting on past events.
Dwan looked at Polk and started talking over the situation – “Doug saw his cards,” the player said, adding that Polk tried to talk Fei out of three betting, but the player didn’t heed that advice anyway. After minutes of hesitation, Dwan moved all in and saw himself land a $3.1 million payout off a single round, the biggest on a live poker broadcast.
This, of course, was not the end of the game, as Fei soon won $2.5 million back. Still, Dwan’s name has been etched in history, and if there is one lesson to take away from this situation, according to Fei, it is that you “cannot bluff Tom”