Dan Colman Poker Strategy

Dan Colman is a fascinating poker player. At only 27 years old Dan is currently third on the all-time tournament money list with more than $28,000,000 in winnings. All of that with just one WSOP bracelet and no WPT or EPT titles to his name.

Colman is also one hell of an online grinder. In 2013 he became the first player in the history to win $1,000,000 in a calendar year playing hyper turbo tournaments accomplishing that goal in only nine months. Even though Dan is extremely successful at poker he's not the biggest fan of the game. After winning $15,000,000 in the Big One for One Drop tournament he famously refused to give any interviews because he views poker as a 'very dark game' where the individual successes 'should rarely be celebrated'.

The Best Of Dan Colman

Even though Dan is only 27 years old he's already experienced enough that it's possible to create 'the best of video' showcasing the more impressive hands from his poker career. The first spot in the video gives up a pretty good idea of what kind of a player Dan Colman is. The aggressive playstyle is a staple of the modern games for a reason, and brilliant young players quickly learn how to utilize that approach to its fullest potential.

Colman wasn't intimidated by great players like Scott Seiver and Antonio Esfandiari, he just saw them as aggressive players trying to one-up each other which presented him with a great spot for a cold 4bet bluff. The fact that QJ in his hand blocked some of the premiums in villain's ranges made the decision even easier but still far from trivial especially in the context of a high-stakes tournament.

It takes a special kind of skill not to go broke with a top pair against the short stacker and the second hand in this compilation shows us exactly that. Daniel is no stranger to the low stack to pot ratio situations given how he excels in online hyper-turbo games. The experience gained in that difficult environment where edges are arguably even smaller than in many other forms of poker, allowed Colman to develop a great game sense.

Hand number three is another example of Colman's relentless aggression. Once again he tried to find the edge where the vast majority of player would just elect to split the pot, especially against someone like Daniel Negreanu. Dan used the pressure guaranteed by his stack advantage and the context of a giant high-stakes poker tournament to massively overbet the river with a straight on the board.

Daniel knew that he was splitting the pot the vast majority of the time and he would no doubt call even a pot size bet in a heartbeat, but by betting three times the pot Colman ensured that Negreanu had to be right virtually every time to make the call and his creative betsizing helped him to win that prestigious tournament.

Hand number four might have been a bit less impressive than the commentators would lead us to believe given how both flop and turn got checked down. However, a hero call with ace high is still a tough play to pull off correctly, especially on such a coordinated board texture where Cates could easily be turning small pairs into a bluff. Besides, hero calling against 'Jungleman' is far more impressive than hero calling against your average poker grinder and the fact that Colman practically destroyed Cates in that session goes a long way in explaining his overall level of success.

The Colman vs. Jungleman saga continues in the last hand featured in the clip. The way Dan Colman played this hand shows us once again that he's willing to look for the edges where most players wouldn't dare to, and at this point, it's pretty safe to say that this approach was the main reason why Dan managed to become a big winner in both live and online games. Many competent players out there advocate the lack of flop check-raising range given how it's relatively hard to balance from the GTO perspective.

Most of them wouldn't make a raise on a lockdown board like 5A5 and yet this is exactly what Colman did in the hand against Jungleman. He didn't stop there either following up with expertly sized turn and river barrels putting maximum pressure on the opponent in a spot where he's certainly not used to handling it. Cates knows that Colman's line doesn't make much sense and he even says as much, but he's unable to make the call because even an experienced and accomplished player like him isn't used to making tough decisions in a similar situation.