Dan Harrington is a professional poker player who is best known for winning the WSOP main event in 1995, making the WSOP main event final table in back-to-back years in 2003 and 2004, and authoring several high-regarded books on poker.
A former attorney, Harrington was born in 1945 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is a former champion backgammon player, U.S. chess master (he won the 1971 Massachusetts State Chess Championship), and bankruptcy lawyer.
Harrington played poker at the Mayfair Club with other now-famous players like Howard Lederer and Erik Seidel. Harrington earned the ironic nickname "Action Dan" even though he is known as a generally tight player. Harrington won the WSOP main event in 1995 for $1,000,000 and made three other main event final tables, placing 6th in 1987 for $43,750, 3rd (out of 839 players) in 2003 for $650,000, and 4th (out of 2,576 players) in 2004 for $1,500,000. His run of back-to-back main event final tables is considered by some people to be the greatest accomplishment in World Series history. As defending champion in 1996, Harrington made another deep run in the main event, finishing in 17th place and earning $23,400. He also cashed in the 2009 main event, finishing in 252nd place for a $32,963 payout.
In 1995, he also won a bracelet in the $2,500 No-Limit Hold'em event for $249,000.
He made his first WPT final table in 2005, winning $620,730 for his 2nd place finish in the Doyle Brunson North American Championship. In 2007, during season 6 of the WPT he won the Legends of Poker for $1,634,865.
Sporting his trademark green Boston Red Sox cap, Harrington is a respectful player who is known to be a tight-aggressive player who can get creative when he needs to.
In addition to being a successful professional poker player, Harrington also works in real estate and the stock market and spends a large amount of his time on his business interests. He considers himself only a part-time players who usually only plays the bigger tournaments.
In 2008, Harrington made his first appearance on the NBC show Poker After Dark in the "Mayfair Club" episode. This tournament brought together players who had played at the Mayfair Club in New York City. The other players in the tournament were: Howard Lederer, Steve Zolotow, Mickey Appleman, Jay Heimowitz, and Mike Shictman, the owner of the Mayfair Club for many years. Jay Heimowitz won the tournament after defeated Howard Lederer in heads-up play. Harrington finished in 6th place.
Harrington has co-written 3 books on tournament poker ("Harrington on Hold'em" series) and 2 on cash games (the "Harrington on Cash Games" series). These books are considered by most players to be some of the most valuable poker books on the market today.
As of 2009, he has 8 WPT cashes, 2 WSOP bracelets, 10 WSOP cashes, 4 WSOP main event final tables, and live tournament winnings exceeding $6,600,000.
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