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Medicine Hat, AB — Former Medicine Hat Tiger Dan Idema took a different path post hockey, choosing to entrust his time and money into professional poker. Idema has become one of the elite players, in the Top 40 of all-time with more than 3 World Series of Poker bracelets (Championships) in their career.
Before hitting the felt of the casinos, Idema played 3 seasons with the Tigers beginning in 2001-02. During that year he appeared in 65 games and recorded 5 points as a rookie. Idema was apart of the 2004 Championship team, winning the President’s trophy as the WHL’s best team and appearing in the Memorial Cup. Overall, his WHL career spanned 181 games, collecting 32 points.
Take an inside look at Dan’s poker career, with this interview from Julio Rodriguez and CardPlayer.com:
You might not recognize the name Dan Idema, but only 37 other poker players have won more World Series of Poker bracelets. In fact, Idema has three WSOP titles, as many as poker veterans Barry Greenstein, Sam Farha, and John Hennigan.
What makes Idema’s accomplishment even more impressive is that fact that he’s only been attending the summer series for seven years, and at 31 years old, still has many more decades to add to his win total.
Idema originally spent his early years as a top hockey player before making the full-time switch to poker. He now has more than $2.2 million in live tournament earnings and has played in some of the biggest cash games in the world.
A Lifelong Passion For Hockey
If you ask Idema, he’ll tell you that there is some truth to the stereotype that Canadians are obsessed with hockey. Idema couldn’t get enough of the sport and played from the age of five until he reached his twenties. As a teenager, he competed with a team in the Western Hockey League, which is one of three leagues that constitute the Canadian Hockey League.
“I grew up playing competitive hockey and I was pretty good,” said Idema. “I played major junior in Alberta with the Medicine Hat Tigers. We won the President’s Cup in 2004 and went to the Memorial Cup as well, which is kind of a big deal in Canada. This league is where a lot of the amateur players go before they turn pro.”
Idema didn’t settle with amateur hockey, however. As a solid defensemen known for his skating ability, he caught on with the Geleen Smoke Eaters, a pro hockey team in the Netherlands that was part of the Eredivisie, otherwise known as the Dutch premier league.
Poker Beginnings
Despite his love for hockey, Idema was getting the itch for poker as well.
“I probably would’ve ended up playing hockey all over Europe for most of my twenties if it wasn’t for poker,” he admitted. “Poker paid more and my heart just wasn’t in hockey anymore. I had played it my whole life and was looking for something new.”
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Thanks to his older half-brother Adam Schwartz, a poker player known for co-hosting a popular podcast, Idema had an inside look at what it takes to play the game professionally.
“One of the first times I played poker was $3-$6 limit hold’em with a kill in a Vancouver casino,” he recalled. “My brother played poker quite a bit and was a fixture in the Vancouver poker scene. Obviously, I looked up to him, and when I told him I was interested, he suggested some books to read and helped me out when he could.”
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Of course, if his parents weren’t alarmed that he was walking away from hockey, they certainly raised an eyebrow over his decision to play poker for a living.
Finding Success
Idema found early success by playing online poker, and it quickly consumed his life, much like hockey did as a teenager.
“I ended up spinning $100 into about $20,000 playing on PartyPoker,” he said. “That’s when I kind of felt like I could play poker for a living. For the first couple of years, I was basically playing 60- or 70-hour weeks. I couldn’t wait to come home and put in the hours.”
In 2007, Idema got his first major taste of live tournament success when he won the B.C. Poker Championship main event for $402,500. Although he could more than hold his own with no-limit hold’em, it was limit hold’em where he had a major edge and those games just weren’t being spread often enough to keep him from the online grind. In fact, he stated that early on he would travel to the World Series of Poker and play online anyway.
Then in 2010, he made two final tables at the WSOP with a seventh-place showing in the $2,500 mixed hold’em event and a runner-up finish in the $10,000 limit hold’em championship event for $263,244. Narrowly missing out on his first bracelet was particularly brutal considering that he had such a big chip lead against Matt Keikoan during heads-up play.
“He was so short that he was basically all in before looking at his cards with 8-2,” Idema recalled. “I had pocket sixes, but he hit an eight and came back to win it. It was tough to deal with that.”
The very next year, Idema returned to the WSOP, entered the $10,000 limit hold’em championship and managed to navigate his way through a field of 152 players for the win and the $378,642 first-place prize. This time, with a 4-1 heads-up advantage, Idema was able to close it out.
“When I somehow managed to win that very same event, it felt incredible. It felt like I was vindicated.”
Adding More Bracelets To The Collection
In the years since his first win, the WSOP has continued to be kind to Idema’s bankroll. In 2013, he made another final table when he took seventh in a $1,000 no-limit hold’em tournament, and followed that up with his second bracelet in the $1,500 seven card stud eight-or-better event for $184,590.
He made the final table of the $1,500 dealer’s choice event in 2014, and then the next summer, he made three more final tables including a third-place showing in the $1,500 seven card stud eight-or-better event for $70,322 and a sixth-place finish in the $3,000 pot-limit Omaha event for another $53,342.
The highlight of his 2015 campaign was when he won his third bracelet, this time in the $3,000 H.O.R.S.E. event for $261,774. Idema has now cashed at the WSOP 26 times and made nine final tables, adding up to $1.45 million in earnings.
Idema credits his success in the WSOP events to his limit hold’em background, which made it easier to wrap his mind around mixed games.
“I think I had an easier time making the transition to mixed games because of my limit background,” he said. “The no-limit guys not only have to learn the other games, but they aren’t used to the flow of a limit game and how it differs from the big bet games.”
He was also clear to point out that his style of play in the mixed cash games is often more aggressive than in tournaments.
“In the later stages of a limit tournament, your chips become more valuable and you can’t really take high-variance spots like you would in a cash game. In a cash game, you don’t mind pushing hard when you think you have positive equity, but in a tournament you have to consider the pay jumps and your tournament life.”
Money Over Prestige
With three bracelets, Idema now belongs to an elite club that includes the likes of John Cernuto, Jonathan Duhamel, Eli Elezra, Antonio Esfandiari, Sam Farha, Barry Greenstein, John Hennigan, Jason Mercier, Michael Mizrachi, and Vanessa Selbst. Winning obviously feels good to a former hockey pro, but Idema has no problem admitting that the money is his ultimate trophy.
“I’m extremely proud of my bracelets. Every time you win one, you enter a new club that’s smaller and more exclusive. I feel very blessed to have had the success at I’ve had at the WSOP. Three bracelets are hard to get. But I’m not going to lie, the money always makes me feel really good. So when I won a tournament, I usually felt more relief than anything. It was a relief to know that I was going to have a profitable summer and that all of the buy-ins and expenses were justified, because there are a lot of amazing players each year who are just on the bad side of variance and don’t have my results.”
Idema has had his own share of downswings before, but he says the best players always find a way to respond well to adversity.
“I have a high tolerance for pain,” he said. “If you don’t have that, then don’t gamble for a living. Everyone plays great when they are on a ten-day winning streak, but it’s how you react when things aren’t going well that determines whether or not you can make it as a poker pro.”
For the better part of the last decade, Idema has spent his maximum number of days in the U.S. playing poker. With limited action in Vancouver and the online games not being what they used to be, Idema will usually travel down to the Commerce in Los Angeles for about three months a year to play the $200-$400 mixed games.
These days, however, Idema is content to cut back on the poker grind and work on some other projects, as well as coach hockey in his spare time.
“To be honest, as I get older I’m not a big fan of traveling much for poker,” he admitted. “Unless I can do it as a vacation, then it’s tough, a big poker trip. My goal is to do something else and then just show up to play at the WSOP every summer. That’s when I get really excited about poker, like I was during my first few years playing.”
For the last eight years, the largest tournament in the world has been the World Series of Poker Main Event. With the exception of 1992, the US$10,000 buy-in tournament increased in prize pool year-over-year from its start in 1970 until 2007 (the latter a result of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006, which reduced the number of players winning their seats via online play).
The first tournament to reach a million dollar prize pool was the 1983 WSOP Main Event. The WSOP Main Event of 2004 had the first prize pool of above $10,000,000.
The largest non Hold'em Tournament has been the 2008 WSOP $50K HORSE with a prize pool of $7,104,000 and the first prize of $1,989,120 going to Scotty Nguyen.[1]
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Below are the 30 largest poker tournaments with respect to the prize pool in United States dollars and not number of entrants. This list includes live and online poker.
Currently, 14 of the 15 largest prize pools in history have been WSOP Main Events. The second largest prize pool outside of the Main Event is the 2012 WSOP event known as The Big One for One Drop, held from July 1–3. It featured a buy-in of US$1 million, the largest in poker history. Of the buy-in, $111,111 was a charitable donation to the One Drop Foundation, and the WSOP took no rake. All 48 seats available for that event were filled, resulting in a prize pool of $42,666,672, with over 5 million dollars donated.[2] The second largest pool for any event outside of the WSOP was the 2012 Macau High Stakes Challenge, with a HK$2 million (US$260,000) buy-in plus a rebuy option. The event drew a field of 73, of which 21 made a rebuy, resulting in a prize pool of HK$182,360,000 (slightly over US$23.5 million).[3]
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All of the 30 richest tournaments to date were played in No Limit Hold'em.
| Event | Prize Pool (US$) | Winner | 1st Prize | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2006 WSOP Main Event | $82,512,162 | Jamie Gold | $12,000,000 | [4][5] |
| 2019 WSOP Main Event | $80,548,600 | Hossein Ensan | $10,000,000 | [6] |
| 2018 WSOP Main Event | $74,015,600 | John Cynn | $8,800,000 | [7] |
| 2010 WSOP Main Event | $68,799,059 | Jonathan Duhamel | $8,944,310 | [8] |
| 2017 WSOP Main Event | $67,877,400 | Scott Blumstein | $8,150,000 | [9] |
| 2019 Triton Super High Roller Series - Triton Million | $65,660,000 (£54,000,000) | Aaron Zang | $16,775,820* (£13,779,491) | [10] |
| 2019 Triton Super High Roller Series - Triton Million | $65,660,000 (£54,000,000) | Bryn Kenney* | $20,563,324* (£16,775,820) (2nd place) | [10] |
| 2011 WSOP Main Event | $64,531,000 | Pius Heinz | $8,711,956 | [11] |
| 2008 WSOP Main Event | $64,333,600 | Peter Eastgate | $9,152,416 | [12] |
| 2016 WSOP Main Event | $63,327,800 | Qui Nguyen | $8,005,310 | [13] |
| 2014 WSOP Main Event | $62,820,200 | Martin Jacobson | $10,000,000 | [14] |
| 2012 WSOP Main Event | $62,021,200 | Greg Merson | $8,527,982 | [15] |
| 2009 WSOP Main Event | $61,043,600 | Joe Cada | $8,547,042 | [16] |
| 2015 WSOP Main Event | $60,348,000 | Joe McKeehen | $7,680,021 | [17] |
| 2007 WSOP Main Event | $59,784,954 | Jerry Yang | $8,250,000 | [18] |
| 2013 WSOP Main Event | $59,708,800 | Ryan Riess | $8,359,531 | [19] |
| 2005 WSOP Main Event | $52,818,610 | Joe Hachem | $7,500,000 | [20] |
| 2012 WSOP Event 55 – The Big One for One Drop | $42,666,672 | Antonio Esfandiari | $18,346,673 | [21] |
| 2014 WSOP Event 57 – The Big One for One Drop | $37,333,338 | Dan Colman | $15,306,668 | [22] |
| 2016 Monte-Carlo One Drop Extravaganza | $27,437,564 | Elton Tsang | $12,248,912 | [23] |
| 2019 PokerStars NL Hold'em Players Championship | $26,455,500 | Ramon Colillas | $5,100,000 | [24] |
| 2018 WSOP Event 78 – The Big One for One Drop | $24,840,000 | Justin Bonomo | $10,000,000 | [25] |
| 2004 WSOP Main Event | $24,224,400 | Greg Raymer | $5,000,000 | [26] |
| 2012 Macau High Stakes Challenge Super High Roller | $23,511,128 | Stanley Choi | $6,465,560 | [27] |
| Super High Roller Bowl 2015 | $21,500,000 | Brian Rast | $7,525,000 | [28] |
| 2016 WSOP Event 67 – High Roller for One Drop | $19,316,565 | Fedor Holz | $4,981,775 | [29] |
| 2013 WSOP Event 47 – One Drop High Roller | $17,891,148 | Anthony Gregg | $4,830,619 | [30] |
| Super High Roller Bowl 2017 | $16,800,000 | Christoph Vogelsang | $6,000,000 | [31] |
| 2007 WPT Championship | $15,495,750 | Carlos Mortensen | $3,970,415 | [32] |
| 2013 GuangDong Ltd Asia Millions Main Event | $15,376,897 | Niklas Heinecker | $4,456,885 | [33] |
| 2011 Pokerstars Caribbean Adventure | $15,132,000 | Galen Hall | $2,300,000 | [34] |
| * | Due to a prize splitting deal Aaron Zang received £13,779,491 ($16,775,820) for 1st, original payout for 1st was £19,000,000 ($23,100,000). Bryn Kenney received a larger cash prize of £16,775,820 ($20,563,324) for 2nd place. |
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Notes[edit]
- ^Hendon Mob
- ^Dalla, Nolan (June 30, 2012). 'The Biggest One—World's Most Spectacular Poker Extravaganza Starts Sunday'. World Series of Poker. Retrieved July 3, 2012.
- ^Peters, Donnie (August 31, 2012). 'Stanley Choi Wins Macau High Stakes Challenge for US$6,465,746'. PokerNews.com. Retrieved October 21, 2012.
- ^'2006 WSOP Main Event payouts'. WSOP. Retrieved 4 September 2017.
- ^Hendon Mob
- ^https://pokerdb.thehendonmob.com/event.php?a=r&n=541550
- ^[1]
- ^wsop.com
- ^http://www.wsop.com/tournaments/payouts.asp?grid=1352&tid=15673
- ^ abhttps://triton-series.com/triton-super-high-roller-series-london-2019/
- ^'PIUS HEINZ WINS 2011 WSOP MAIN EVENT CHAMPIONSHIP'. WSOP. 8 November 2011. Retrieved 9 November 2011.
- ^Hendon Mob
- ^'Level 4 concludes: officially the largest main event in the last five years'. WSOP. Retrieved 4 September 2017.
- ^Poker News Daily
- ^pokernews.com
- ^'2009 WSOP main event prize pool'. WSOP. Retrieved 4 September 2017.
- ^'Event #68: No-Limit Hold'em MAIN EVENT'. 2015 World Series op Poker Chip Counts. World Series of Poker. Retrieved July 15, 2015.
- ^Hendon Mob
- ^'2013 44th Annual World Series of Poker, Event #62: No-Limit Hold'em Main Event'. WSOP.com. Retrieved July 20, 2013. Click on the 'Prizepool' tab for the first prize.
- ^Hendon Mob
- ^Dalla, Nolan (July 3, 2012). 'Antonio Esfandiari Pulls Off Amazing Trick by Winning One Drop'. WSOP.com. Retrieved July 4, 2012.
- ^Hendon Mob
- ^[2]
- ^[3]
- ^[4]
- ^Hendon Mob
- ^Hendon Mob
- ^Hendon Mob
- ^Hendon Mob
- ^Hendon Mob
- ^[5]
- ^Hendon Mob
- ^Hendon Mob
- ^pokerstarsblog.com