Daniel Weinman Wins WPT Title, Announces OFC Retirement

Daniel Weinman figured he was long shot going into the World Poker Tour Borgata Winter Poker Open – a feared gambler and creator of Fantasyland in OFC, but without much major tournament success – against some of the best competition playing tournaments today.

“I’ve had a good amount of success on the WSOP Circuit, but one could argue that the fields are more heavily weighted towards recreational players and less top pros,” Weinman said. “Winning this main event on one of the big three tours feels like the next step.”

Weinman increased his lifetime earnings by 67% with the $892,433 windfall to $2.2 million. Which is good enough for sixth on the Georgia all-time money list. The top five spots are occupied by poker heavyweights and Ankush Mandavia, David Bach, Jason DeWitt and Hall of Famer Billy Baxter.

On the very top of that list is his friend Josh Arieh and passing him is one of Weinman’s goals. “Passing Josh on the Georgia money list would be pretty great, but I’m still about $4 or $5 million away,” he said. “I’d love to grab a WSOP bracelet along the way, preferably in a draw game as they are definitely my best and favorite games.”

Weinman flirted with a bracelet in the opening events of the 2016 WSOP. “I came out of the gate super-hot with a bunch of top 30’s and one final table $1,500 Razz,” said Weinman. “Unfortunately, about two weeks into the Series I suffered a large OFC loss, which wiped out all of the winnings and then some. It really hurt my confidence and desire to keep grinding for making a run at Player of the Year,” he said.

Big swings are something Weinman’s dealt with on and off in his career, but he’s been able to compartmentalize his losses for the most part. “I’ve always been a pretty even keeled guy and for some reason the swings in poker have never seemed to bother me a ton – but golf is a bit of a different story,” said Weinman.

“This is just an unfortunate part of the poker world that 99% of pros are going to experience at some point in their careers,” he said. “Whether it’s a large makeup figure, or large cash game losses when taking big shots, sometimes even winning a tournament can’t get you even for the week – month – year.”

“For me, it all comes back to just having the confidence to believe I’m a winner in the games I’m playing.  From there it’s simply a matter of playing enough volume to get unstuck,” Weinman added. “I’m fortunate enough to have some close friends in the poker world with the confidence and bankrolls to stake me should things be going poorly for an extended time.”

In the moments after winning the WPT title Weinman told reporters that he was retiring from OFC following the win. “At least for significant stakes,” he clarified. “OFC was a very fun addition to the poker world in 2012 and I’m proud to have been instrumental in bringing the game to the masses, but I think it would have been better off if OFC had never gotten popular.”

“The amount of bad debt and animosity it created, mostly due to the mobile apps, was something I never anticipated or wanted,” Weinman said. “For me OFC was mostly a gambling game in which I had a small edge on most players, once we started adding variants outside of the normal game, the variance involved went through the roof.”

“We are talking five maybe 10 times that of PLO, which many consider to be a game with too much variance already,” said Weinman. “Combine that with playing too high for my own good, it wasn’t a surprise that I was swinging around as much as I was in 2013-2016.”

“It’s much more relaxing now to have a few small games of fun variants – badeucey in the middle anyone? – with Shaun (Deeb) and Jason (Mercier) than to constantly be battling and having $100K+ swings at every stop.”