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Few players are more associated with the first online poker boom than Tom "Durrrr" Dwan. Through his domination of the online heads up scene and his iconic appearances on the original High Stakes Poker, Dwan became one of the most successful players at the poker table and one of the most recognizable away from it.
Last week, Dwan joined David Tuchman in 888poker's Chevy Tahoe for another episode of the 888Rideinterview series on Youtube.
During their drive together, Tuchman and Dwan chatted about the state of live poker cash games and the importance of private cash games, the allegations against Dwan of unpaid debts, and how much Dwan really enjoys the game he plays so well.
At the time of the interview, the 2024 WSOP was still underway and although Dwan downplayed the importance of bracelets to him, he did allow that he would be playing "some PLOs" explaining that he planned to "Day 2 the $10k, probably play the $25k, $50k" but that he had "things to do" during the Main Event.
However, despite making his reputation as an online crusher Dwan's distraction from the WSOP was not online poker, but live cash games.
"Online was a lot more prevalent," Dwan explained. "Now, to be playing high stakes online is a lot more complicated. I did not see that coming. If you told me in 2009 that I would be playing more live than online, I never would have seen that coming."
"Though I didn't know the sites were gonna get shut down," he added.
Tuchman asked about how Dwan felt about the shift towards more high stakes private games. Some players decry the move, suggesting that it has become exclusionary — a world where who you know is as important as your skill at the table.
"They might be against it," Dwan replied. "But that's 'Old Man Shouts At Cloud' kind of shit. This is happening. It's there. And part of why it's there because for a long time the power structures listened to the most vocal people. Which was often the pros."
The result of the industry trying to please the pros is, in Dwan's view an alienation of recreational players. As a result "what you get is more and more private games."
"I don't really like that, but that's kind of a consequence. [...] If you don't spend a bunch of time thinking about what the businessmen and recreationals want, then someone will set up a private game that does."
At one point in the conversation, Tuchman turned the clock back to 2009 and the $1.1 million dollar hand between Phil Ivey and Dwan.
"It was probably one of the bigger pots we played," Dwan acknowledged modestly. "But back then we played big pots in Macau and stuff [...] But that one might have meant a bit more to other people than to me, just because it was on T.V."
With nearly fifteen year's now passed since the iconic hand, Tuchman asked what the next ten years might look like for Dwan. Surprisingly, it doesn't sound like it will be especially poker-heavy.
"I like poker," Dwan admitted, before adding, "I know a lot of people say they love poker. I'm not sure if all of them do or not. But I definitely don't love poker."
"Did you used to?" Tuchman asked.
"No. I never really did. I think there are some really interesting things about it. If I haven't played for a month it's fun to go play for a few days. If I'm sitting there grinding 12-15 hours a day for a week, I'm not really looking forward to playing the 16th hour."
Instead, Dwan's current interest is cryptocurrency. "The last two or three years, I spent a lot more time on crypto. I think there's a good chance that continues. I just think the opportunities there are pretty strong [...] There's some stuff about it that I find more rewarding. It's not zero sum and it happens there's a lot of overlap with poker.
The full interview is twenty minutes long, and Dwan and Tuchman delve into several other topics, including how Dwan deals with being a celebrity, his interest in A.I., and what he thinks of the various controversies that have dogged him throughout his poker career.
You can watch the full interview here.
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