Despite booking a $2 million win at the EPT Grand Final Super High Roller back in April, outside of the closed world of online poker players, Daniel Colman was a relatively unknown quantity prior to his $15 million win at the Big One For One Drop tournament at this Summer’s World Series of Poker.
As headline worthy as winning $15 million is, it was Colman’s reaction (or lack thereof), and his reluctance to speak to the media following the win that garnered the most press, and turned him into a poker villain of sorts in the eyes of many.
Since then the online specialist has put together one of the greatest runs in tournament poker history, and found himself in the middle of yet another controversy, when he wore a Free Palestine shirt at the European Poker Tour Barcelona Super High Roller final table –a tournament he finished 2nd place in.
Colman’s detractors
Some members of the poker media have taken an overly critical view of Colman, seemingly taking a page out of the J. Jonah Jameson playbook.
The argument goes that his antics are hurting the game, and his seemingly contradictory views are little more than youthful ignorance. For this crowd, Colman is bad for poker, and you can’t really blame them for thinking this, as generally speaking, you really don’t want one of your best players (the likely Player of the Year) running around telling people to not play poker.
Not only that but Colman’s views seem paradoxical.
It’s hard to balance the notion that poker is a dark game that distracts people from the things that are important, while making your living (and millions of dollars) playing poker. Or, to say you don’t want to promote poker as the reason you refuse to speak to the press, but then wear a t-shirt promoting your stance on a contentious message emblazoned across the front at a poker tournament.
Others (myself included) see Colman less as a villain and more as an individual; someone who doesn’t fit in the conventional box of a marketable “poker pro.”
To continue with the comic book reference, he is more like the classic antihero, possessing qualities that are far from ideal, but never crossing the line into repugnant behavior.
It’s this aspect of Daniel Colman that can be marketed, whether he likes it or not, and poker may in fact need this type of behavior.
Televised poker has fallen into a rut of predictability, and Colman is a wild card, something we should be applauding. His anti-social, self-loathing behavior brought more press to poker than anything that could have come out of the mouth of poker’s greatest ambassador, Daniel Negreanu, or anything short of AA losing to AA.
Colman, like so many antiheros, could very well wind up being a fan favorite.
Wrestling had Sting.
Comics are full of them, from Wolverine to Batman to Hellboy.
There’s even more examples on TV and in films: Tony Soprano, Sherlock Holmes, and “Dirty” Harry Callahan immediately come to mind.
The point is, self-loathing, anti-social tendencies, mystery, selfishness, a temper, and possessing conflicting views on morality, (this is not to say that Daniel Colman possesses all of these traits) do not disqualify someone from being promotable or appealing to the masses.
In fact, it’s these qualities that can often cause them to connect with the audience, since we all have various degrees of these traits, but we know that our “dark side” is only one part of our makeup, so we do not simply toss aside anyone who is brooding as a villain.
Phil Hellmuth, Tony G, and Mike Matusow are three of the best known poker players and all are what I would term antiheroes: They are the yin to Daniel Negreanu’s and Mike Sexton’s yang. So it would seem that poker fans don’t want a cookie cutter group of poker superstars; they want diversity.
Perhaps the most apt comparison is Viktor Blom, who wouldn’t even reveal his identity for well over a year, and even as the face of Full Tilt Poker is still is one of the hardest “gets” in poker media. Yet the poker world pines for news about him and about his results. In late 2009 “Isildur1” dominated poker headlines, and now in 2014 Colman is doing the same.
So please don’t tell me there is no room in poker for antiheroes. Colman is the live tournament version of Blom, which makes him far more marketable than Blom.
A perfect example of how marketable Colman is can be seen on social media where many people were sarcastically or seriously rooting against Colman to win the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open, and at the same time others were rooting for him, either as contrarians or because they relate to him.
Not everyone is 1984 Hulk Hogan, and Hulk Hogan doesn’t appeal to every fan. Every now and then you need a Roddy Piper or a Sting to come along and shake things up. People are smart enough to know Colman is just one poker player and his personality doesn’t reflect on the game as a whole.
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