It was Daniel versus Daniel. One, a young online heads-up specialist, the other one of the greatest live tournament players of the last couple decades. Appropriately, it might seem, it was the heads-up specialist that triumphed heads-up, as Daniel Colman defeated Daniel Negreanu last night to win the 2014 World Series of Poker (WSOP) $1,000,000 Big One for One Drop and an amazing $15,306,668.
The final table went fairly quickly on Tuesday. Tom Hall was eliminated on the money bubble on the first hand and three more players were out by Hand 24.Colman was still hanging back at that point, with a middle-of-the-pack chip stack, but one that was also more than 20 million behind the chip leaders, Negreanu and Christoph Vogelsang. On Hand 34, though, Colman raised pre-flop, Tobias Reinkemeier raised all-in, and Colman called. As Reinkemeier had more chips, Colman was all-in for his tournament life. It was a good spot to do it in, though, as he had Aces against Reinkemeier’s pocket Fives. The board offered no help to either and Colman doubled-up to over 32 million.
From there, Colman cruised into heads-up play against Negreanu, holding a chip lead of 68,550,000 to 57,450,000. It was a back-and-forth match, with Negreanu grabbing the lead right away, then Colman regaining it after about 15 hands, only to see Negreanu yank it back just a few hands later.
On the 103rd hand of the official final table (started eight-handed), though, Colman rivered a full house, extracting a treasure chest of chips from Negreanu, and took a massive lead, 85,800,000 to 40,200,000. Colman expanded his new lead from there, finally knocking Negreanu out on Hand 118. The two men raised each other pre-flop until Negreanu was all-in for almost 21 million chips with A-4, called by Colman and his K-Q. It was a made-for-TV flop: J-A-4, giving Negreanu top pair, but offering Colman a gut-shot straight draw. And wouldn’t you know it, That 10 landed on the turn. Negreanu wasn’t able to come back with a full house on the river and had to settle for the $8,288,001 in runner-up prize money.
Side note about that second place prize: with that finish Daniel Negreanu is now atop the all-time live tournament money list with $29,796,381, about $3.5 million ahead of Antonio Esfandiari, who won the Big One for One Drop in 2012. Colman is now sixth all-time, his $15,306,668 win giving him $18,200,842 in his career.
Afterwards, Colman decided not to conduct a post-game interview with WSOP.com or any of the poker media, which is really neither here nor there, as nobody is paying him to make an appearance. He did give a moment to ESPN, preferring to deflect attention away from himself and towards the One Drop organization, to which $111,111 of every buy-in was donated.
Negreanu, never one to shy away from speaking, had very complementary things to say about Colman when he spoke with WSOP.com’s Jess Welman after the tournament. “What makes him tough is he is very good at playing flops,” he said. “If you want to be a good poker player, pre-flop poker is not where it’s at. He plays lots of flops, he’s very careful. Think boxer-wise. He had his guard up and threw a lot of little jabs, then when someone would open up, he’d throw the knockout punch.”
As Colman wanted everyone to know, the focus of this tournament, above and beyond the gross sums of money at stake, was the One Drop non-profit organization. Founded in 2007 by Cirque du Soleil founder and avid poker player Guy Laliberte, One Drop strives to make sure everyone in the world has access to clean drinking water. According to its website, there are an estimate 800 million people on this planet without this basic resource. With 42 players in the tournament, a total of $4,666,662 was donated to One Drop.
2014 World Series of Poker – $1,000,000 Big One for One Drop – Final Results
1. Daniel Colman – $15,306,668
2. Daniel Negreanu – $8,288,001
3. Christoph Vogelsang – $4,480,000
4. Rick Salomon – $2,800,000
5. Tobias Reinkemeier – $2,053,334
6. Scott Seiver – $1,680,000
7. Paul Newey – $1,418,667
8. Cary Katz – $1,306,667