Fresh out of Rutgers University with a level in finance and minor in economics, David Coleman didn’t precisely land the job he’d hoped for. Pushing papers as a pension plan administrator didn’t fairly make use of his analytical thoughts and penchant for numbers. The aim was to land a gig at a giant financial institution or hedge fund, however that wasn’t within the playing cards.
“It was very boring and I didn’t feel very challenged,” he says. “I felt like my role didn’t utilize my math skills. I felt like it was very ‘just do stuff by the book,’ which is not necessarily my strength. Some of my biggest strengths are analyzing numbers and figuring out how things work. I wasn’t that high up on the totem pole at that point. I was just doing grunt work.”
After seven weeks, he was already in search of one thing else. After work, his routine often concerned going dwelling and taking part in on-line poker – one thing he loved and had a knack for. Could clicking a mouse and battling it out on-line pay the payments?
Taking a leap of religion, Coleman ditched the day job and gave full-time poker a shot. He hasn’t regarded again.
The 31-year-old initially from Livingston, New Jersey, went on a large run in 2024, concluding with a runner-up within the Card Player Player of the Year race offered by Global Poker. It was an epic yr that included six titles, 25 closing desk appearances, and almost $5 million in whole cashes.
Keep in thoughts that earlier than 2024, Coleman had by no means been the final man standing in a serious dwell match. That all modified with a breakout January anybody would envy, beginning by taking down the $1,600 Card Player Poker Tour fundamental occasion on the Venetian for $115,989.
He then went on a tear within the PokerGO Tour Kickoff Series, cashing in 4 consecutive occasions with two wins, a runner-up, and a fifth-place for a complete of almost $300,000. He would notch one other win within the $15,000 PokerGO Cup occasion for $302,400 to shut out the month.
“It was pretty surreal,” he says. “Every time I made a deep run in a match, I’d be tremendous grateful and appreciative. Then weeks later, I’d be making a run on one thing else. It was like a endless dream. I felt like I couldn’t lose an all-in all yr.“
The huge finishes simply stored coming. In February, he grabbed a runner-up in a $50,000 Triton Poker Jeju occasion for $642,900. A U.S Poker Open win adopted in April for $202,300 with a number of different closing desk appearances within the spring. He added fourth and fifth-place finishes on the World Series of Poker after which struck gold within the World Poker Tour Alpha8 excessive rollers at Wynn Las Vegas, ending sixth within the first of three occasions for $97,000 and successful the ultimate occasion for $730,300.
In August, Coleman grabbed one other runner-up in a $10,000 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open occasion for $198,900 and a fifth-place end within the European Poker Tour Barcelona fundamental occasion for $442,835. There have been 4 cashes within the Poker Masters, a fourth-place end in a North American Poker Tour Las Vegas aspect occasion for $132,450, and he closed out the yr at WSOP Paradise with a sixth place within the $100,000 Triton fundamental occasion for a profession finest $890,000.
“I’ve come a long way as a player, especially in the live arena where I didn’t have a ton of experience before 2024. I was more of an online guy. When I moved to Vegas, I transitioned to playing a really full schedule, and 2024 was the first year I did that. I was very fortunate to have things go my way in a big way.”
As a results of his breakout yr, Coleman completed second within the Card Player Player of the Year race, lower than 500 factors behind two-time winner Adrian Mateos.
Coleman spoke with Card Player about his 12-month heater, the journey from New Jersey basement video games to excessive rollers everywhere in the world, and the place he’s headed subsequent along with his profession.
Hitting The Virtual Tables
Growing up with three brothers, competitors was a daily a part of life for Coleman. Living on a dead-end avenue meant basketball or hockey video games might escape at any second. He credit these early sibling battles with giving him his edge on the tables.
“I have that chip on my shoulder, a little bit of my toughness,” he says. “I definitely attribute a lot of my success to my upbringing for sure.”
Like {many professional} gamers, Coleman grew up taking part in playing cards. He remembers small-stakes video games within the basement along with his brother and his good friend as younger as age 12. Coleman’s personal buddies quickly joined in and people basement classes become a twice-weekly dwelling recreation by the point they reached highschool. These days, those self same highschool poker buddies nonetheless comply with his motion and blow up his cellphone after a win.
After shifting on to Rutgers, Coleman’s poker scene was lowered to about as soon as every week throughout his freshman and sophomore years earlier than the sport died out as he completed his diploma. Then the deliberate administration job fizzled and taking part in every night time on-line turned his routine.
“Online poker was going super well all the time. I was really enjoying it, and I saw consistent results,” he says. “So, I decided to give it a shot and haven’t had a real job since.”
The ramped-up on-line efforts started with money video games in 2015, taking part in from six to eight tables of $1-$2 and $2-$5 no-limit maintain’em to construct his bankroll. By 2017, he bought bitten by the match bug.
“Cash games kind of got boring to me,” he says. “Tournaments were a really good opportunity. Online poker in New Jersey was just incredible. It was perfect timing to really build a roll in a small market with small player fields. I got to know everybody pretty well and how they played, and the variance was quite low. It was a very stress-free way to start my career.”
Many mother and father will not be on board for his or her son deciding to play poker relatively than making use of a freshly-minted finance diploma, however Coleman’s mother and father took a special method.
“They were more supportive than a lot of other parents,” he says. “They saw how well I was doing and how much I enjoyed it. They didn’t fully get it at first, but as I got older, they did. They still don’t fully get it – no parent fully does. I say it was a big moment in my career when my mom stopped calling poker ‘playing’ and started calling it ‘working.’ That was kind of the moment where things clicked, and I started to really feel like I was where I belong.”
Transitioning To The Live Game
At the time, Coleman seldom performed dwell poker, simply mixing in occasional occasions in Las Vegas and on the Borgata in Atlantic City and Parx Casino in Philadelphia a number of occasions a yr. Even in these restricted forays into the dwell recreation, Coleman started discovering success.
He started taking part in extra PokerGO Tour occasions, rapidly discovering good ends in the 2021 PokerGO Cup, together with a runner-up end for $455,000 and a third-place rating for $144,000. He additionally discovered a 3rd in a WSOP Online occasion for $102,720 and a runner-up on the 2021 Super High Roller Bowl Cyprus $50,000 excessive curler for $364,000.
“My results in the high stakes [tournaments] weren’t amazing at first. I just started to run much better, and definitely started to play better too as things started going my way,” he says.
All of his huge finishes in excessive rollers culminated with a victory within the $25,000 buy-in Alpha 8 occasion at Wynn, which paid out $730,300.
“I won six tournaments this year, but that was probably the most memorable one,” he says of the Alpha8. “That was a really great tournament, and I got to take home this insane trophy. It was incredible to win that, and it felt like a big weight off my shoulders because I’d only won $5,000 and $10,000 events prior to that, so a $25,000 win was an extra treat against some really good players.”
What does Coleman see as a number of the fundamental variations between taking part in at mid-level stakes and excessive curler occasions?
“Obviously, they’re just much tougher fields with much better players,” he says. “One of the things that has contributed to my success recently is just that I’m very adaptive to learning through just watching other people play. Not only have I built a community of poker players that I talk poker with and learn from, but just from watching these guys play these high rollers, I’ve picked up a lot and that’s helped me tremendously.”
Looking Ahead
Away from the tables, Coleman enjoys staying lively, watching sports activities, and touring along with his girlfriend. With some huge bucks coming his means during the last couple years, Coleman can also be now placing that finance diploma to good use. He owns a pair properties and invests within the inventory market and a few cryptocurrency.
While he talks poker some with different gamers, together with excessive curler standouts Brock Wilson, Chris Brewer, and Justin Saliba, maybe its befitting a longtime on-line poker participant accustomed to going it alone that Coleman has traditionally been extra comfy engaged on his recreation by himself.
“Honestly, throughout my career, I’ve been somewhat of a lone wolf as far as studying goes, much more than others,” he says. “I definitely use different training websites and other content out there to help me, but I think compared to other people, I don’t rely on study groups as much. I like working alone, but I’m learning as I get older that it’s good to work in a study group to delegate and split the workload up, and then share the work you each individually put in. That makes things much more efficient. That kind of hasn’t been my M.O. until more recently since I moved to Vegas and built more of a network.”
Despite some shut calls, Coleman has but to seize a WSOP bracelet and most of his huge scores have come away from the sequence. But chasing trophies and match titles isn’t essentially foremost on his thoughts.
“It’s definitely on my bucket list,” he says of successful a bracelet. “It’s something I want to get accomplished as soon as possible. It’s much more doable when I play high stakes with much smaller fields, and seems like a much more accomplishable goal than when I played mid-stakes and had to deal with 2,000 players every tournament. But to be 100% frank, I’m not as much of an accolade chaser as some other people. I’m more just chasing EV and happiness, more so than trophies and bracelets. But I’m not going to say I don’t want one.”
So what’s forward within the coming yr and what objectives does he have for the longer term?
“I’m going to play a considerably comparable schedule that I did final yr. The key distinction will in all probability be taking part in a bit of bit much less total, not forcing myself to play if I don’t wish to. I like to play, however typically I really feel a bit of burnt out from taking part in a lot. I’ll attempt to discover extra days off when doable, however I simply discover it difficult at occasions as a result of the schedule is so good. But I’ll attempt to be higher at that and simply have extra leisure in the course of huge sequence and luxuriate in time with my girlfriend.
“I’ll also try to make more of a vacation out of these trips. I’m going to go to Jeju (South Korea) in February, and then hopefully stop in Japan after just for strictly vacation. No poker involved, just purely vacation.”
