Dan Colman Continues Heater At 2014 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open

Dan Colman won $1,446,710 in the 2014 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open $10 million guaranteed main event. Incredibly, that is just the third largest score he’s made this year. With just under $21 million in live earnings since this April, Dan Colman is on the biggest heater in live tournament poker history.

Colman had already won two of the largest super high roller events ever held, the European Poker Tour Grand Final €100,000 Super High Roller and the $1 million buy-in Big One For One Drop in the span of just a few months. Colman quickly disproved the notion that he could only thrive in small-field events, however, by emerging victorious from a field of 1,499 entries to notch his third title of the year. Here is a look back at how the 23-year-old poker pro from Holden, Massachusetts wrote the latest chapter in a historic year.

Sophomore Slump Sees Seminole Hard Rock Hollywood Post $2.5 Million Overlay
In 2013, the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Hollywood in Southern Florida took a big risk, committing to a $10 million guarantee for a $5,300 buy-in no-limit hold’em event. Its SHRPO main event had to attract more than 2,000 entries to avoid an overlay. The inaugural running drew 2,384 buy-ins and re-entries to build an incredible $11,920,000 prize pool.

With such an incredible first go, it was clear that the event would be back again. The eight-figure guarantee returned for 2014, but, due to a number of circumstances, including competing major events running simultaneously, the event fell short of reaching the guarantee. In the end, there were 1,499 entries, meaning that the casino had to put up roughly $2.5 million in prize money to honor the published guarantee, which was great news for the players, but a setback for the event.

“Obviously, we wanted to sell it out, but it’s not the end of the world. We’re not in this for one tournament, we’re in it for duration,” said Seminole Gaming COO Larry Mullin. “We think we have room to improve across the board.“

Only time will tell if this huge and exciting event will retain its $10 million guarantee next year. Despite the decreased turnout, this was still an absolutely massive event. After three starting days and two more full days of action, the field was narrowed down from 167 tables worth of entries down to just two tables.

The Business End Of The Tournament

Among the final 18 players were plenty of notable pros, including former WSOP November Niners Russell Thomas and John Dolan, Joe Kuether, 2014 Card Player Player of the Year contender Mike Leah, World Poker Tour main event winner Shawn Cunix and Colman. Play down from 18 to a live-streamed final table of six went quickly, with six players hitting the rail in the first 75 minutes of play.

2012 WSOP main event fourth-place finisher Russell Thomas was the next to go, losing in a classic race situation with the A K against Mike Leah’s Q Q. Leah would take that momentum and ride it all the way to a final-table chip lead. With 15 million of the roughly 45 million chips in play, Leah looked poised to win the largest title of his career. All of poker punditry knew that he would have a tough road to the title though, with four other seasoned opponents, as well as Dan Colman in second chip position.

Here is a look at the chip counts heading into the final table:

Rank Player Chip Count
1 Mike Leah 15,455,000
2 Dan Colman 10,230,000
3 Joe Kuether 7,090,000
4 Martin Hanowski 5,210,000
5 Shawn Cunix 4,870,000
6 John Dolan 2,045,000

John Dolan started as the shortest stack, but mounted a small comeback early and took out sixth-place finisher Martin Hanowski. Next to go was Joe Kuether, who flopped top pair on a J 5 3 board with J 9 and ended up getting all of his chips in against Dan Colman, who was well ahead with the A A. The turn and river gave Kuether no help, and he was sent to the rail in fifth place with $424,044, while Colman chipped up. Colman next sent Dolan packing with a rivered straight after Dolan went deep into the tank and made a hero-call with second pair for his tournament life. With that, Colman overtook the chip lead going into three-handed play.

Three-handed play saw Leah work his way back into the lead before Colman and Cunix clashed in a pivotal pot. Colman raised to 450,000, with the limits at 100,000 – 200,000 with an ante of 25,000, holding the A 10. Cunix called from the small blind with the K 7 and Leah three-bet to 1.4 million with pocket threes from the big blind. Colman made the call and Cunix quickly announced that he was all-in, making a big move with only king-high. Leah found a fold after a bit of thought, but Colman made the call and his hand held up to eliminate Cunix in third place. For his deep run, he earned $748,313.

Two of 2014’s Hottest Players Meet In Heads-Up Showdown

This heads-up battle was a showcase of two of the game’s top talents. Mike Leah and Dan Colman were both at their sixth final table of the year. Leah kicked off 2014 with a win in a $5,300 no-limit hold’em event at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure and followed that up with another win in a $1,000 preliminary event at the Fallsview Poker Classic. His third POY title came in a $580 preliminary event at the WSOP Circuit at the Bicycle Casino in Los Angeles. Leah made two final tables during the summer, finishing seventh in a $2,500 Omaha/stud eight-or-better event at the WSOP and second in a $1,100 event at the Venetian.

As impressive as Leah’s year has been, Colman’s is in an entirely different league. He started his incredible run by winning the 2014 European Poker Tour Grand Final €100,000 Super High Roller for more than $2.1 million. He followed that up by winning the second running of the $1 million buy-in Big One For One Drop, defeating 2013 Card Player Player of the Year winner Daniel Negreanu heads-up to win $15.3 million. He also made the semi-finals of the WSOP $10,000 heads-up no-limit hold’em championship, finished runner-up in the €50,000 high roller at the EPT Barcelona, and third at a $100,000 super high roller held at Aria in July.

Colman, who is a heads-up no-limit hold’em sit-n-go specialist, entered the final showdown with only a 5-to-4 chip advantage over Leah, but with some strong holdings and millions of hands of experience playing this format, he quickly increased that lead until he held a 3.5-to-1 advantage by the time the final hand arose.

Leah raised to 600,000 from the button with the Q J and Colman three-bet to 1.5 million with the A K. After some thought Leah moved all-in for 11.6 million and Colman snap-called.

The board ran out 4 3 2 10 K and Colman’s hand held up to secure him the pot and the title. For the win, Colman earned $1,446,710 and 1,920 Player of the Year points, enough to catapult him into the outright lead in the standings with 4,770 points and $20,980,768 in year-to-date earnings. With this win Colman, who had $350,000 in live tournament earnings to his name this spring, surpassed Phil Ivey on the all time earnings list, moving into third position behind Daniel Negreanu and Antonio Esfandiari.

Leah earned his first seven-figure score and 1,600 POY points for his runner-up showing, and, as a result, the Canadian pro moved into third place in the overall Player of the Year rankings. His point total for the year is 4,174 with $1,512,026 in earnings so far.

In the end, the 2014 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open main event was a success. Despite the sophomore slump in turnout and the resulting overlay, this event proved that it is one of the largest and most exciting poker tournaments of the year. Much like runner-up Mike Leah and champion Dan Colman, the SHRPO will be worth keeping an eye on in coming years. Both players and the event will likely make their impact felt in the poker world for quite some time. ♠

Here is a look at the payouts and POY points awarded at this final table:

Place Player Earnings POY Points
1 Daniel Colman $1,446,710 1920
2 Mike Leah $1,047,638 1600
3 Shawn Cunix $748,313 1280
4 John Dolan $548,763 960
5 Joe Kuether $424,044 800
6 Martin Hanowski $324,269 640
7 Blake Bohn $249,438 480
8 Brian Hawkins $199,550 320
9 Roman Valerstein $149,663 160