Daniel Colman Wins WPT Alpha8 in London

Daniel Colman continued his amazing 2014 run with a win at the WPT Alpha8 event in London. (Image: World Poker Tour)

Daniel Colman has won yet another high-roller poker tournament, continuing an amazing run that has seen him scoop over $22 million in tournament play so far in 2014. Colman’s latest victory came at the World Poker Tour Alpha8 tournament in London, where Colman beat a field of 23 players to win £600,000 ($970,000).

The tournament was the first in Season 2 of the WPT’s Alpha8 series, which focuses on super high-roller events designed to highlight the biggest names in poker. In total, 17 individual players put up the £60,000 ($90,000) entry fee, with six players (including Colman) buying in for a second time to fill out the 23 entries.

In the end, four players made the money. Isaac Haxton was the first to bow out after the money bubble, winning £160,000 ($258,000) for his fourth place finish. The early chip leader, Talal Shakerchi, was then eliminated in third place by Colman himself. Shakerchi took home a prize of £224,000 ($362,000).

Colman Defeats Altergott in Heads Up Play

That left a heads-up battle between Colman and Max Altergott, another player who had chosen to pay for a re-entry and gotten his money’s worth. Colman entered the tournament with about a 2-1 chip advantage, but after a few all-in pots, Altergott found himself in the lead.

That’s when the players decided to accelerate the event, changing the blinds to 50,000/100,000. With only 2.3 million chips in play, that was enough to press the action, and three all-in and call pots quickly followed. On the final hand, Colman’s J8 pair with an eight on the flop to overtake Altergott’s K4, earning Colman his latest tournament victory. Altergott was forced to settle for second place and a £350,000 ($565,000) payday.

Win Continues Superlative 2014 Run

The win was just the latest in a string of incredible victories for Colman over the course of the last six months. His amazing run began in April, when he took down the Super High Roller event at the EPT Grand Final in Monte Carlo, a win that earned him $2.1 million. It was a career-changing victory for Colman, who had previously won just over $500,000 in his career up until 2014.

But that was nothing compared to what Colman would achieve two months later. In June, following a third-place finish in the World Series of Poker’s $10,000 Heads-Up event, Colman won $15.3 million for his victory in The Big One for One Drop, the second-largest prize ever awarded in a poker tournament. That was followed by a runner-up finish at a Super High Roller tournament at EPT Barcelona and victory in the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open Main Event, each of which earned him over $1 million.

In total, Colman has now won more than $22 million in 2014, enough to place him in 3rd place on the all-time live tournament money list. But it’s possible that Colman has generated even more press because of his attitudes and actions than for his incredible run.

After the Big One for One Drop, Colman responded to those questioning why he didn’t seem interested in celebrating or talking to the media in a twoplustwo.com forum post where he outlined his conflicted opinions about poker, calling it a “dark game.” He later found himself in another controversial situation when he and Olivier Busquet wore t-shirts bearing political statements in support of Palestine at the final table of the EPT Barcelona super high-roller tournament.

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