Atlanta poker Josh Arieh had to be wondering where the heck Daniel Alaei had come from when the two went heads up in the final stages of the World Poker Tour’s Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic. It wasn’t that Josh would have assumed Mr. Alaei was an unknown player who was making his first appearance on a big stage; Daniel Alaei has been a respected cash game poker player in Vegas for years. Arieh may not have noticed Alaei was even in the room seeing as Daniel was missing in action for a full day of the WPT Texas holdem tournament.
During the first day’s play of this popular World Poker Tour event, Daniel had skipped out on the Texas Holdem tournament in order to take part in a high stakes cash game. . "I signed up to play and some guys were starting up a big cash game," Alaei said. "So, I played in that over the tournament for the rest of the day."
The penalty for this move was losing a full day’s worth of blinds and having his opponents forget that he even exists. Of course, like most poker pros who make a good living by taking the money of lesser poker players, he probably thought he could survive the one day hit to his tournament bankroll. Nobody else playing at this WPT event did anything to prove him wrong, and at the end of the tournament he was being photographed with a pile of cash worth $1.4 million dollars.
"I'm more used to the swings and dealing with big money changing hands," Alaei said. "That makes me more comfortable. I think that has to be an advantage."
We admire the sheer set of stones it takes to take a day off from a high profile event, then come back to win the entire thing.
