Player Focus: urindanger & trex313

When the top online players in the world are asked to name the people they most respect in the game, the Dang brothers are usually among the first few answers.

Di (pronounced ‘Zi’) and Hac, playing as ‘urindanger’ and ‘trex313’ respectively, have been beating the toughest games in the world for well over a year now and were two of the biggest winners anywhere online in 2007 (this trend is continuing through 2008).

We thought this profile would be better done as a duo because their poker careers are so completely intertwined that it is hard to refer to one without mentioning the other in the same sentence. Their story begins in native Virginia, where they both studied mechanical engineering at the UVA and first began ‘crushing’ the lower levels of Party Poker’s NLH games. In an excellent interview with Bluff’s Chris Vaughn, Hac reveals the fundamental reason why both of them progressed through the levels so fast:

“When we first started playing, we were constantly in competition with one another. Z would play a ton and move up and I would realize that he was getting a lot better than I was, so then I would play constantly until I had matched him or got better, and it would just keep going back and forth.”

Their key strategic decision, however, came when they decided that sharing bankrolls would reduce variance and allow them to keep ‘rotating the strike’ when a juicy game was on and only one of them felt like playing. It also helped improved their game: in a matter of months they had shot up from Party’s $3/$6 levels to the $200/$400 games on Full Tilt; sometimes even as high as $500/$1000.

And the sharing of their winnings seems to work out well. 2007 saw ‘Urindanger’ win over $1.3million at the highest levels, easily putting him in the top 10 FT winners for the year. But 2008 has been the turn of ‘trex313’ to take over; in the first 9 months of the year he is up over $3million, largely thanks to a series of marathon heads-up sessions with Phil Ivey at his ‘thunderdome’ table. See below for a sample of hand of the action (as you might have guessed from the hand, Dang emerged a clear winner in the game).

In another excellent video interview with Card Player at the start of 2008, both brothers stressed their respect and admiration for Tom Dwan and Phil Galfond, who they say improve their game immensely by discussing various hand scenarios and general strategy. Of course, they couldn’t run in this crowd at those levels without making a few prop bets: they are currently in the middle of a 10-hour proposition that Di could win more over 16 tables of $2/$4 NLH than Hac could win at 8 tables of the same levels. (Currently, Di is winning). Di also mentioned a yet-to-be-completed prop with David Benefield that he could beat ‘Raptor’ at basketball without jumping; Benefield has so far refused the offer because of the potential mental ramifications were he to lose.

Despite being 23 & 24 years of age, neither has much live experience to date; in fact, on two plus two Di describes a conversation with ‘durrrr’ about his live tells: “I learned so much about live reads and how much of a fish I still am at live tells. Tom did an angry faced me impression after a turn card fell. I don’t think I was as ugly faced as he made me look but I know now I probably make expressions that give off information to live pros. All the conversation and “being nice” at the table is just so they can make me play worse. So manipulative! At first, I thought its borderline angle-shooting, but it’s just the differences between live and online play.” Indeed, in the 2007 WSOP Main Event Daniel Negreanu gave some advice to “Z” after a hand (see below) after it was rumoured that he was reading Harrington on Hold’Em at the table (it is unknown whether Daniel fully understood who he was speaking to).

Both agree on one thing, however: they won’t stay in poker forever. They still live with their family (3 younger siblings and parents in Virginia) and say they love being able to help them out. The fact that they stayed at UVA to finish a 5 year degree when they were making so much money is testament to the respect that they give to their parents, who insisted that they should finish their studies. Their humbleness is perhaps best summed up by Hac when he said to Card Player: “I’m not that good at poker; a lot of people think I’m better than I actually am. I’ve just got good bankroll management.” How many of the worlds biggest poker winners could say that?