PA and durrrr actually playing: The durrrr Challenge between Patrick Antonius and Tom Dwan looks like it might end this century. After several months in hibernation, the two players are back at the table, trying to complete the 50K hand challenge. And things haven’t gone well for PA of late. He’s now down $2 million with just over 40K hands complete. Check out the status page here, and read about their latest session here.

FTOPS is here: FTOPS XVII starts tomorrow, with $19 million guaranteed over 34 events. Check out a story and the full schedule here. The first tourney is a $216 buy-in with $750K guaranteed. The main event is next Sunday, with $3M guaranteed.

Poker on Google: Remember that Google Super Bowl ad? Someone came up with an awesome one for poker. Enjoy:

This week in poker: The weekly show brought to you by the guys at wickedchopspoker.com goes live at 4 p.m. today. If you want to watch, tune in at 4 p.m. Pacific, 7 p.m. Eastern.

WSOP on ESPN: Coverage of the World Series of Poker on ESPN continues tonight, with two hours on the Tournament of Champions. Story about what you can expect to see here. There were a total of 27 players who started the $1 million freeroll tournament, including most of the most recognizable names in poker, like Phil Ivey, Phil Hellmuth, Daniel Negreanu and Doyle Brunson. Who won the top prize? Watch tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern to find out. Column here from Gary Wise at ESPN.com, and you can watch a preview here:

Barry and Gavin on the hot seat: Barry Greenstein did an interview for relatively new website pokerstatic.com. You can check that out here:

And here’s part two of an interview with Gavin Smith over at pokerroad.com. The website greets you with a close-up of his face, and that honestly can’t be good for traffic:

Poker and airport security?: Seem like strange bedfellows, right? Story here talks about how scientists are using game theory and poker to try to improve security at airports in the United States, starting with a test run at the airport in Pittsburgh. They are trying to thwart terror attacks by creating algorithms that randomize the deployment of resources at airports. Way to go, poker!

OMG, it’s Phil Galfond: Phil “OMGClayAiken” did a segment of “All Inbox” over at cardplayer.com, where he answers readers’ questions. Check it out here:

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Welcome to the jungle, durrrr: Tom Dwan is ready to face jungleman12 in the next edition of the durrrr Challenge, in which the two players will play 50,000 hands against each other to see who comes out on top. Dwan and Patrik Antonius are still playing the challenge after a year and a half, but we’re betting Dwan and jungleman12 will get the job done faster. PA and Dwan actually logged a session on Sunday, and Dwan is still up about $1.6 million through nearly 40K hands.

Hey, it’s martonas: Before there was Isildur1 there was martonas. The original mystery player at Full Tilt Poker who would take on the best players in the world at the highest levels was back this weekend, martonas had experienced a downswing of about $6 million. And he had been largely absent from Full Tilt’s tables, till yesterday, when he showed up again. Read about what happened here.

The week ahead: What’s going on in the poker world this week? Take a look at our new feature, “The Week Ahead in Poker.” This week? The second week of ESPN coverage of the WSOP, live tournaments all over the world, and FTOPS XVII.

Sunday majors: Here’s a look at what happened in the biggest online poker tournaments on Sunday. Among the big winners was Alex “AJKHoosier1” Kamberis, who chopped the win for PokerStars’ Sunday warm-up and then finished second. And here’s the Sunday Million show, courtesy of PokerStars:

All star wrap up: All Star Week at PokerStars is over. After 35 matches between Team PokerStars Pro and challengers over the course of the last week, the challengers scored a decisive win, 24-11. Read all about it here.

Video poker: Catch up with the best poker-related videos of the week in the latest edition of Rewind. This week, ESPN’s post-WSOP Inside Deal, and Annie Duke’s media blitz.

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The latest bit of news was a short sentence on the blog of jungleman12, who is an instructor at the online poker training site CardRunners. After a lengthy blog post, he tacked on this sentence: “Regarding the durrrr challenge, It’s going down.”

The possible match between the two players had been discussed by online players for the last couple of weeks, ever since the two players chatted after a session at Full Tilt Poker:
durrrr: y dont u take challenge
durrrr: since u never lose to me
jungleman12: i will prob
jungleman12: maybe
jungleman12: isnt bt (Brian Townsend) next or something?
durrrr: i can do 2 at once
durrrr: we could obv play in like 2 weeks
jungleman12: k
durrrr: kk gg
durrrr: gl

When the challenge starts, it will pit two of the best cash-game players on the planet in 2010. Dwan leads all players in profit in online cash games with $3.3 million in profit. Jungleman12 has been in the top five for much of the year and has been as high as No. 2. Currently he is fourth for 2010 with $2.2 million in profit. Jungleman12’s identity outside of the realm of online poker is still unknown.

Here’s how the durrrr Challenge works:

Dwan and his opponent will play a total of 50,000 hands at tables with limits of $200-$400 or higher in no-limit hold’em and pot-limit Omaha. Players must reload if they get below 75 big blinds. Whoever is in profit at the end of the challenge wins. Dwan wins $500K if he is ahead at the end of the challenge, while his opponent wins $1.5 million if he is ahead after 50,000 hands.

It’s unclear what this means for the challenge that is still active with Patrik Antonius. What we do knows is that after a nearly three-month hiatus, the two players played a short session of 280 hands on Sunday, according to the challenge status page on Full Tilt Poker’s website. Through 39,254 of 50K hands, Dwan is up about $1.6 million, and finishing the challenge is mostly a formality, barring some huge hands in the final 10K. The challenge between Dwan and Antonius, which had the online world abuzz when it started last year, has dragged on for a year and a half.

The recent activity might mean that Antonius and Dwan will try to wrap up their match before Dwan and Jungleman12 tangle. Or the match might start while Dwan is still playing Antonius. We’ll have updates as we know more.

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Jared “harrington25″ Bleznick bounced back in a big way this week. Last week, he was the biggest loser at Full Tilt, with $384K in losses. This week, he got almost all of that back, logging profits of $352K to lead all players in playing about 7,600 hands. Patrik Antonius, who led all players at Full Tilt last week, had another strong showing, with $335K in profit.

Lots of players put in pretty solid volume for the week, led by Luukie21, who played 13,223 hands and was seventh in profit for the for the week. Players over 8,000 hands included Tom “durrrr” Dwan (8,888, -$230K), riyyc225 (9,726, -$152K), and Di “Urindanger” Dang (8,426, +$9K).

Here are the top 10 in profit for the week (click on any player for full details):
harrington25 $352,800
Patrik Antonius $335,173
DIN_FRU $294,178
chipchip $215,499
LokoIsBack $214,994
NEKOTYAN $165,406
Luukie21 $145,326
MUSTAFABET $143,018
tuff_fish $142,867
tyme2gamb0l111 $135,143

The nice week pushed harrington25 back over a million dollars in profit for 2010. That puts him in ninth place for the year on the profit leaderboard. Tom “durrrr” Dwan, despite posting losses for the last two weeks, still leads all players with just over $3 million in profit.

You now need $1 million in profit for 2010 just to crack the top 10 for the year. NEKOTYAN, who was in the top 10 for the week, moved up to second place for the year at $2.29M, passing jungleman12, who is now third. Phil Ivey dropped to fifth place after posting a moderate loss of $42K for the week.

Here are the top 10 players for the year:
durrrr $3,016,383
NEKOTYAN $2,285,113
jungleman12 $2,249,106
LokoIsBack $1,969,547
Phil Ivey $1,963,901
PostflopAction $1,631,581
Urindanger $1,556,618
theASHMAN103 $1,271,141
harrington25 $1,235,831
David Oppenheim $1,194,667

Cole South continued a downswing after a hot start to 2010. He led all players with $344K in losses, and he is now down for the year (-$242K) after leading all players in profit, at one point. Dwan was in fourth in losses, at -$233K. Other players having down weeks included David Benyamine and Ilari “ziigmund” Sahamies.

Here are the top 10 in losses for the week (click on any player for full details):
Cole South -$344,161
world1969 -$315,691
Niki Jedlicka -$266,852
durrrr -$230,238
David Benyamine -$203,389
sbrugby -$162,841
Ziigmund -$157,255
riyyc225 -$152,165
CHUFTY -$148,232
FinnishNightmre -$121,349

There wasn’t much change at the top of the losses leaderboard, as Brian Townsend remains about $2.5 million down for 2010. Here are the top 10 losing players for the year:
Brian Townsend -$2,534,059
Matatuk -$1,539,661
ZeeJustin -$1,442,585
Richard Ashby -$1,296,365
howisitfeellike -$1,139,282
Triko -$988,699
PixKim -$974,180
DrPill -$883,764
LarsLuzak -$855,614
Browndog19 -$767,582

Source: highstakesdb.com

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Here were the top five players for the week, in terms of profit. (Click on any player to view their full stats):
Patrik Antonius $365,792
NEKOTYAN $317,700
LokoIsBack $301,381
riyyc225 $252,156
jungleman12 $242,411

Antonius, who played in just the main event in this year’s WSOP, was the top earner, despite playing just 1,861 hands. With the solid week, Antonius finally got himself out of a huge hole he had dug for himself earlier in the year. For a while, he had been the biggest loser for 2010 at Full Tilt’s tables, with about $3 million in losses. Now, he’s up about $150K for the year.

Russian player NEKOTYAN, continued a recent upswing with a +$200K month. Jungleman12 also squeezed into the top five for the week.

Both of those players are now ahead of Phil Ivey for the year, at third and second place, respectively. Tom Dwan, despite having a down week (-$200K) still leads the way for 2010 with $3.2 million in profits. While Antonius and Dwan are still wrapping up their 50,000-hand challenge with each other, news came out this week that jungleman12 might be the next to challenge durrrr, which would be two more heavyweights matching skills.

Here are the top 10 players, in terms of profit for the year:
durrrr $3,246,621
jungleman12 $2,249,106
NEKOTYAN $2,119,706
Phil Ivey $2,006,394
LokoIsBack $1,754,553
PostflopAction $1,631,581
Urindanger $1,547,382
theASHMAN103 $1,339,599
David Oppenheim $1,212,618
harrington25 $883,029

The biggest loser for the week? Jared “harrington25″ Bleznick, at -$384K for the week, got the booby prize. He was doing well in the absence of the heavy hitters, but took a hit this week. Right behind him was Ashton “theASHMAN103″ Griffin, at -$325K.

Here were the top five losers for the week:
harrington25 -$384,082
theASHMAN103 -$325,232
Luukie21 -$290,201
UarePileous -$268,621
DIN_FRU -$248,185

Dwan was sixth in losses, and he was the big driver of the action for the week, as he was the only player with more than 10,000 hands played (11,482).

The top losers for the year remained largely unchanged, with Brian Townsend leading the way at -$2.5 million.

Here are the top 10 losers for the year:
Brian Townsend -$2,534,059
Matatuk -$1,488,430
ZeeJustin -$1,442,585
Richard Ashby -$1,296,365
howisitfeellike -$1,071,361
Triko -$988,699
PixKim -$974,180
DrPill -$883,764
LarsLuzak -$855,614
Browndog19 -$767,582

Source: highstakesdb.com

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NEKOTYAN, a Russian player, was the top player for the week, winning just under $200,000 in about 2,200 hands. It continued a solid year for NEKOTYAN, who is now up $1.64 million for the year, good enough for sixth place on the leaderboard.

Only two other players had six figures of profit this week: Luukie21 ($167K) and Full Tilt pro Andy Bloch ($140K). Luukie was doing his best to push the action, playing a site high 3,617 hands at the high limits.

Here the top 10 winners for the week:
NEKOTYAN, $199.844,80
Luukie21, $167.144,50
Andy Bloch, $140.690,70
sbrugby, $73.840,45
Ziigmund, $44.484,00
Ben Grundy, $39.480,30
Hong Kong1, $34.529,00
OlliPolli, $34.274,00
URnotINdanger2, $34.186,75
Jani Vilmunen, $29.392,50

The biggest loser of the week is Nizot Skizared, who is generally believed to be pro Joe Cassidy. He gave back $143K in just 492 hands. Harrington25, after a run of success in recent weeks, was down $127K, followed by Justin “BoostedJ” Smith at $124K.

Gus Hansen was one of the top players in terms of volume for the week, with 2,850 hands, and ended up giving back $40K.

Here the top 10 losers for the week:
Nizot Skizared, $-143.406,50
harrington25, $-127.040,00
Justin Smith, $-124.705,20
FakeSky, $-98.580,10
Vaga_Lion, $-56.043,50
NeverBettor, $-49.536,00
Robert Dinero, $-46.915,05
rumprammer, $-45.902,50
Gus Hansen, $-40.695,90
Browndog19, $-35.000,00

The overall leaderboards remained unchanged at the top. Tom “durrrr” Dwan (+3.4 million) and Phil Ivey (+$2 million) were inactive and still hold down the top two spots on the 2010 leaderboard.

Brian Townsend still leads all losers for 2010 at -$2.5 million.

Source: highstakesdb.com

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Play continued to be slow online during the final week of the WSOP, before the main event begins. Things are sure to heat up in the coming weeks when the likes of Phil Ivey and Tom “durrrr” Dwan return to the virtual felt.

But for now, harrington25 is at the top of the food chain, winning $210K while playing just 1,229 hands last week. That continued a recent upswing for Bleznick, who is now up about $1.4 million for the year at Full Tilt Poker, and pushed himself into the top 10 for 2010.

Two other players had six figures of profit for the week, URnotINdanger2 ($106K) and riyyc225 ($100K), who made an impact despite no playing much until the last couple of months. Vaga_Lion was fourth for the week at +$94K, courtesy of a six-figure net profit in a session with Ilari “ziigmund” Sahamies.

Just two players were down more than six figures: rumprammer (-$171K) and ginette22 (-$166K).

There was no change at the top of the yearly leaderboards. Dwan played just 12 hands for the week and is up $3.5 million, followed by Ivey ($2M) and jungleman12 ($1.96M).

Here’s the 2010 standings:
durrrr $3,446,652
Phil Ivey $2,017,829
jungleman12 $1,964,929
PostflopAction $1,773,622
Urindanger $1,665,284
theASHMAN103 $1,633,645
LokoIsBack $1,464,039
NEKOTYAN $1,444,045
harrington25 $1,403,398
David Oppenheim $1,109,645

Brian Townsend still leads all losers for 2010 at $2.5 million in net losses.

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Online play at the highest levels continued to be slow with the WSOP still going on. Dwan still managed to play 3,205 hands during the week and won $281,263. He had the highest volume of any player at the site, as only a few other players played more than a thousand hands.

Second on the profit charts was Ilari “ziigmund” Sahamies at $129K, at just 972 hands. No other player won more than six figures for the week.

The big loser for the week was Cole South, who managed to lose $277K over the course of just 403 hands. It continued a lengthy downswing for the player who was once up millions in 2010. He is now just up about a quarter of a million.

The only other player to lose six figures was ginette22, at $114K. That player is still unknown, but hasn’t had much success since appearing at Full Tilt’s high-stakes tables in May.

Isildur1 played a modest 441 hands and lost $58K. He continued a modest string of losses of late and is still stuck seven figures for his career at Full Tilt.

Dwan continued to lead all players for the year, up about $3.4 million. He was followed by Phil Ivey and jungleman12, who are both up about $2 million.

Four players are down more than a million, led by Brian Townsend at -$2.5M. Behind him are “Matatuk” (-$1.49M), Justin “ZeeJustin” Bonomo (-$1.44M) and Richard Ashby (-$1.2M).

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The top player for the past week is URnotINdanger2, whose identity, much like the more famous Isildur1, is a mystery. Playing just 3,866 hands, he logged profits of just over $198,000 for the past week to lead all players at Full Tilt.

Right behind him is Patrik Antonius, who has been noticeably absent from the WSOP, but also hasn’t been playing a lot online. He was up more than $178K for the week, despite the fact that he played only 343 hands.

Yet another mystery player, jungleman12, continued his recent run of success and was up $106K.

On the top of losers’ leaderboard was Odonkor1, who was down $234K for the week. The Swedish player, Joel Nordqvist, recently signed with Victory Poker, but continues to play at Full Tilt.

The aforementioned Isildur1 was the most active player of the week, playing more than 5,000 hands. He lost about $96K.

The leaderboards for the year remained largely unchanged, as Tom “durrrr” Dwan is up $3.1 million for the year, and Phil Ivey is up just over $2 million. Jungleman12 is third at just under $2 million in profit.

Brian Townsend leads all losers, at $2.5 million in losses for 2010.

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The WSOP is ramping back up with two touranments starting yesterday and today. Catch up on yesterday and this morning with our daily recap, including the winner of the $5K NLH event, and nearly a final table of the $10K 2-7 lowball event, which includes some scary names: Erik Seidel, Daniel Negreanu and John Juanda. And here are the storylines to watch today, including a closer look at the final 10 of the lowball event.

One of the events that started on Thursday, a $1,500 pot-limit Omaha tourney, is apparently the largest PLO tourney ever staged, with 885 entries. That’s a lot of cards. Also yesterday, the WSOP Tournament of Champions qualifier took place, and Bertrand ‘ElkY’ Grospellier won the nine-player event to reach the 27-person $1 million freeroll. He beat out the likes of Tom Dwan and Gus Hansen.

More updates than you could possibly read for every tournament at the WSOP here. And here’s a video recap with a pretty girl:

One of the hottest players at this year’s WSOP is Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi, who won the $50K Players Championship earlier. Cardplayer.com caught up with him below:

Earlier, we reported on Scotty Nguyen laying off the sauce. And now the man himself talks about it. Pour a 40 on the curb to show your respect, the next time you get a chance:

It’s all about the side bets these days at the WSOP, and less about the prize money or the titles, at least for the top pros. Story here about how more money is riding on site action than just about anything else at this year’s WSOP.

One of the events starting today is the ladies championship. And you can check out a piece below about the High Heels Poker Tour “ladies suite” at the Rio

Say it ain’t so, Tony G. He’s having a bad run, and he’s thinking about taking his toys and going home, apparently. Read more here.

A lot of info has already been leaked regarding PokerStars’ “The Big Game,” a show that will premiere on Fox next week. PokerStars’ blog has some more info, provided by Negreanu. Here’s the official show website.

And in other poker on TV news, Full Tilt’s failed show, “Face the Ace,” now officially faces a lawsuit. The plaintiff is claiming a violation of copyright for the idea behind the show.

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