Dan Colman has continued his amazing live tournament poker run this year by beating Mike Leah in heads up play at the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open to claim the title and add $1.4 million to his already huge bankroll.
This win actually means Colman has surpassed Phil Ivey in the all time money list for live tournaments, now sitting in third position just behind Antonio Esfandiari and Daniel Negreanu with $21 million in total live tournament earnings.
Colman didn’t go into the heads up battle against Leah with a huge chip lead. After knocking out Culix in 3rd place he had a 5-4 edge, but considering his background was in crushing hyper-turbo heads-up sit-n-gos on PokerStars, he would have definitely fancied his chances.
On the final hand, Leah opened to 600k from the button with the QcJc and Colman decided to three-bet to 1.5 million with AhKd. After some deliberation Leah moved all-in and Colman snap called hoping to seal the deal and end things right there. A low raggy flop of 4h3h2c meant Leah needed a lot of help on the turn or river to survive elimination. But a 10d on the turn and Kc on the river were of no help and Leah had to be content with his second place finish, which was good for a bit more than a $1 million.
With a $10 million guaranteed prize pool, it attracted many professional poker players. It was a tough final table that included Joe Kuether, 2010 November Niner John Dolan, WPT champion Shawn Cunix, and of course Team Ivey Pro Mile Leah who finished runners up to Daniel Colman.
Phil Ivey would have have been about one of his boys doing well in the tournament. It was Leah’s biggest tournament score to date on the live circuit prior to this one his biggest live tournament score was a $319k payday for winning a Borgata Deepstack tournament in 2009. Leah is a very competent mixed game player, and not just proficient in No Limit Hold’em like so many other pros.
But back to Colman, it has been an unbelievable year for him in 2014. He started off the year in impressive style beating Dan Cates to win the EPT Grand Final €100,000 Super High Roller event which saw him take home €1,539,300 after a three-way deal.
If that wasn’t enough, things started to heat up once the World Series of Poker got underway in June. His notable 2014 WSOP results included 3rd in a $10,000 No Limit Hold’em Heads-Up event ($111,942), a 9th in a $5,000 No Limit Hold’em event ($22,309), and of course his win in the $1 million buy-in No Limit Hold’em The Big One for One Drop event ($15,306,668.)
Following this, he got two big Super High Roller tournament scores, which included a 3rd in a Aria $100,000 Super High Roller event ($796,821) and 2nd in a €50,000 Super High Barcelona event (€843,066), finishing runner up to friend Olivier Busquet.
Everyone will remember the day when Dan Colman won the Big One for One Drop event not just because it’s the biggest first place prize money of all time, but because of the controversy surrounding Colman after refusing to speak to media after his big win because he didn’t want to promote poker. This decision not to give a winning interview received a polarized reaction from poker fans, although considering he has gone on to continue winning poker tournaments like they are going out of fashion, it clearly hasn’t affected his game much at all.