Who is Dan Colman? Despite his young age (24), there is a lot that can be said about him when it comes to poker. A good start will be that during the last nine months, Colman has made over $21 million from poker winnings.
Isn’t that impressive? In addition, he is now taking the 3rd place on the lifetime worldwide leader-board of poker winnings and is right after the poker stars Daniel Negreanu and Antonio Esfandiari. The two players combined have 29 years of poker experience and Colman has reached their level in just nine months.
Colman has been playing poker professionally for over six years now. Still, he wasn’t under the spotlight before November 2013, when he participated on a televised poker tournament – Premier League VII where the best players from around the world stood against each other for the prize of $125,000.
He finished third and made an impression to many viewers. This was the turning point of his career. From then on he started participating in major poker events, for example the Monte Carlo European Poker Tour (EPT) Grand Final in April this year.
Colman proved himself again as a world class player by showing insurmountable skill and mental strength, taking home the first place prize of $2.1 million after beating Daniel ‘Jungleman’ Cates in a one versus one battle.
Colman had absolutely no intention to stop there. The World Series of Poker and the Big One for One Drop event with $1 million buy-in fee came next. Dan Colman stood against 41 other players who were there for the huge prize of $15.3 million. The most anticipated match up was with him against the show maker Daniel Negreanu who was at the time the public’s favorite.
Colman took the win with no problems. What was odd about the whole situation was that he refused to give comments or interviews after the event, stating that gambling should not be advertised just like alcohol and cigarettes should not be advertised.
He only allowed ESPN to take one photo of him. He said “I’ve been fortunate enough to benefit financially from this game, but I have played it long enough to see the ugly side of this world.” Despite his hopes of going away with the first place unnoticed by the media, it all turned around and the press echoed his unorthodox behavior and it went viral.
He continued his winning streak by taking prizes at events such as Super High Roller in Aria Resort and Casino, European Poker Tour, Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open and others.
The last event he went in was the World Poker Tour Alpha 8 Season 2 in London where he faced Altergott at the finalist table. They were so tired that they decided to go on to the levels of 50,000/100,000, skipping five lesser levels. It was with a sprinkle of luck that Colman won by shoving Altergott with all-ins constantly and finally taking the first place and winning £600,000.
