Maxx Coleman Wins the 2015 River Poker Series for 775k

The 2015 River Poker series main event has just wrapped up with a relatively unknown player, Maxx Coleman, taking 1st place and a prize of $775,000. This has been surprising for some as Coleman’s resume of professional play is actually rather short. Excluding a brief appearance in 2009, Coleman only started his professional play in 2012. This 1st place win is also a new level of success for him. In fact, this prize alone amounts to more money than Coleman has made in all of his other tournamentscombined. The only other pot to even approach 775k was Coleman’s success at the 2013 WSOP $10,000 World Championship where Coleman placed 21st and walked away with just over $285,000.

For his lack of experience, Coleman certainly seemed competent at the table as he cruised through the top 10 eliminations with an extremely healthy chip lead. Patana Pradith was the first of the ten to drop out and his early elimination allowed Numit Agrawal, the short stack at the table, to squeeze into the top 9 for for a $15,000 bonus before being eliminated in hand #8. Douglas Claybrook and Jose Montes followed suit shortly after.

Down to the final 6, Coleman picked up a serious lead with hand #48 which he won against Lonny Hardcastle. Sitting on a 2-1 chip lead over the other 5 players, Coleman held steady as Hardcastle, Barry Hutter, and Andy Andrejevic busted in succession. Finally down to the top three, Coleman, Jake Holler, and Joseph Skinner decided to split the final pot.

Coleman took 50% of the winnings while Holler and Skinner took 25% each. This amounted to quite a healthy gain for Holler and Skinner who would have walked away with much smaller prizes if they had been unable to strike a deal. Sure enough, within 8 more hands, both Holler and Skinner were eliminated leaving Maxx with an impressive victory and a nice new bracelet.

From his list of recent play, it appears that Maxx Coleman will be a force to be reckoned with at Hold’em tables for the foreseeable future. While this is only his first win, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him at another final table quite soon.