James McManus, Columnist

How Kid Poker Lost a $23 Million Duel

One of poker's greatest players loses a head-to-head duel with a taciturn 23-year-old.

July 3, 2014 at 6:01 PM UTC

James McManus is the author of "Positively Fifth Street" and "Cowboys Full: The Story of Poker." He has written about the game for the New York Times, Harper's, the New Yorker, Foreign Policy, Esquire and Grantland. He teaches writing and literature at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

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By around 7:20 Tuesday night, only two remained of the 42 players who entered the Big One for One Drop -- the three-day, $42 million charitable poker tournament that requires a $1 million buy-in.

Dan Colman, a quiet 23-year-old online specialist from Massachusetts, was about to go heads up with poker's most famous player, the tough but cheerful Canadian Daniel Negreanu, known as Kid Poker, the only two-time World Series of Poker Player of the Year.