2 Jul
The Big One for One Drop tournament reached its big finale tonight. Nine players of original 42 took their seats to try and best each other chasing the custom-made platinum bracelet as well as the $15.3 million first place money.
Defending champion, Antonio Esfandiari, was not amongst those nine, as he fell late during the Day 2, so it was guaranteed that the 2014 would produce a new champion of this mind-boggling event. And by the time the starting field of nine has been reduced to only two, it was two Daniels sitting across one another.
Daniel Negreanu, a legend, a name that everybody knows, a person chasing his seventh WSOP bracelet with numerous other poker achievements to his name on one side and Daniel Colman on the other. In comparison to KidPoker, Colman is far from being a household name and this was his very first WSOP final table, although he does have a win from the EPT Monaco Super High Roller Event under his belt.
Despite this discrepancy, many were favoring Colman at the start of the heads up play, describing him as the heads-up super-turbo specialist, who should have an advantage in this setting. These warnings turned out to be well founded, as couple hours later, Colman succeeded to take all of Negreanu’s chips and capture the first place worth $15.3 million.
Had a blast battling Daniel Coleman! Actually joyful and amazing experience. What a great player and great kid. Congrats to him.
KidPoker admitted himself after the match that Colman was a worthy adversary to say the least. Negreanu tried his best to come on top, but contrary to the rest of the final table, things wouldn’t go his way during the heads up. Still, the more experienced Daniel banked $8,288,001 for his second place finish, which was more than enough to secure him the first place on the All Time Money List. Although he missed out on the seventh bracelet and about $7 million that was the difference between the first and the second place, this is still a nice consolation prize.
The only truly unlucky player to return today was Tom Hall, as he finished in 9th place, which was good for exactly zero dollars. Everybody else got to make at least a small profit on their $1 million investment, and considering the money at stake, all of these players were certainly happy to dodge the bubble bullet.
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
