Is Dan Colman Broke?

Has Dan Colman Gone Broke?

Dan Colman is an American poker star, born in 1991 in Holden, Massachusetts. He now resides in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Primarily an online player, Colman assumes the aliases of “mrGR33N13” and “riyyc225” when frequenting the online tables. Colman was the first player in history to win $1,000,000 in hyper-turbo tournaments in 2013, in a single calendar year (a feat accomplished in nine months.) April 2014 saw him win the €100,000 Super High Roller at the Monte Carlo EPT Grand Final, walking away with a tidy €1,539,300 ($2,093,024.69.) Finishing third place in the 2014 WSOP $10,000 Heads-Up event, Colman also went on to snag his $15,306,668 win at the WSOP The Big One for One Drop in the same year (the second largest first place prize in the history of poker.) As of 2014, Colman’s total live winning amount to a figure well in excess of $17,988,000.

Outspoken Tournament Guru

“Poker is a very dark game.”

Shortly following his 2014 win at the WSOP The Big One for One Drop, Colman became the subject of much controversy after leaving the table abruptly and refusing to give the press any statements, despite ESPN’s three day dedicated coverage of the event. Colman raised a few eyebrows amongst the professional poker crowd with the quote: “I don’t owe poker a single thing. 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. It is not a game where the pros are always happy and living a fulfilling life.” This aggressive attitude to the game, particularly one to which Colman owes his quality of lifestyle, is a little hard to digest. Considering that his assets have (by relatively standards) sizeably increased throughout the course of this last year alone leads many on the scene to wonder why now, after winning just under $18,000,000 in a single year, is he expressing reservations with the moral aspects of the game?

Calling poker a ‘dark game’, Colman acquired the attention of his WSOP rival Daniel Negreanu, who sportingly questioned Colman’s paradoxical statements on his own blog at FullContactPoker: “You don’t owe poker anything, sure, but poker has given you a lot. […] if you are genuinely having an issue with the morality of playing poker for a living, make a choice. Don’t compromise your own moral code for money. If you truly believe in your heart that what you are doing hurts people, and you don’t want to hurt people, you need to make a choice.” Negreanu’s fair comments raise questions as to whether or not Colman will continue to play the circuit whilst he remains so disillusioned with the game itself.

Dan Colman’s Top Five Tournament Cashes

– 1st place for $15,306,668 at the 2014 WSOP $1,000,000 No-Limit Hold’em The Big One for One Drop (Event #57)
– 5th place for €1,539,300 ($2,127,398) at the 2014 EPT €98,000 + 2,000 No-Limit Hold’em – Super High Roller
– 3rd place for $194,000 at the 2013 $125,000 PartyPoker Premier League VII
– 3rd place for $111,942 at the 2014 WSOP £10,000 No-Limit Hold’em – Heads Up (Event #40)
– 5th place for €49,400 ($68,526)at the 2014 EPT €10,000 No-Limit Hold’em – Turbo 6 Max

So has Dan Colman really gone broke?

Considering Colman’s history of refusing to give statements to the press, expressing disillusionment with the game at large and a series of smaller wins alongside his most memorable WSOP and EPT streaks, the future looks uncertain for the early twenties poker star. As Negreanu aptly points out, it’s impossible to be at once a professional poker player and moral superior on the game’s more merciless aspects. Somewhere along the line, Colman is going to have to make a choice. Whether that sees him continue to work the circuit for another year or two before a quiet retirement remains to be seen. There’s also every possibility of Colman calling it there, never returning at all. Equally so, he could forget his WSOP sentiments and go on to enjoy a lengthy and prosperous poker career. Based on his behavior so far, there’s simply no way to tell whether Colman will return to the scene, if he means what he says about the morality of poker or if he’s just deploying some advanced form of strategic posturing. In any case, Colman certainly isn’t broke, but that doesn’t mean he’s far from the possibility. His 2014 wins shot him well into a comfortable financial band that previously, he could only dream of. With this in mind, it’s hard to believe that Colman doesn’t ‘owe a single thing’ to poker. In fact, I’d say he owes poker a lot; somewhere in the region of $17,000,000 if we’re splitting hairs.