Dan Harrington - Professional Poker Player

Updated 2008/2009
Dan Harrington is often known as "Action Dan". He sports a green Boston Red Sox cap and is known to be a crafty, tight player, employing starting hand standards that are stricter than most professionals. He is a man of multiple talents too, as he is a backgammon Champion and also works as a bankruptcy lawyer while playing poker as well. He has a reputation of being tight and it does work well for him. If he ever raises, it is sure to drive a player or two from the game.

He revels in winning, but does realise he won't win all the time. His strategy is to stay in the game and wait for chances where he can pull things of. He prefers consistent 3rd and 4th place finishes rather than winning once in a blue moon while busting out early in all the other tournaments. Being a slow and steady strategist, he is a formidable opponent to even the toughest of foes. All his opponents do claim that his method makes him very predictable and hence they are able to get away from his hands easily. Yet there is no measure that can equal success and that, is something that Dan Harrington has had a lot of in his poker career.

He won over 2 million dollars in 2025, mostly just with 3rd and 4th place finishes. It\'s not that he never wins, but it just goes to show his consistency and how solid a player he is. And as everyone else who was part of the 1995 World Series of Poker knows, he can win. As always, he makes his way to the final table, and is one of the last two players there. He finds himself facing Howard Goldfarb, and he has the chip lead. The hole cards are dealt, and he suits the connectors, the 8 9 of diamonds which is certainly a playable hand, especially if one can see the flop cheaply. Goldfarb had Ah and 7c, and was the first to act pre-flop. He bet a hundred thousand dollars, which Harrington called. The flop was 8c 2c 6d, giving Harrington the top pair, and Goldfarb nothing but a flush or straight draw. Harrington who was playing tight, checked. Goldfarb tried to take the pot right there and moved all in. In an uncharacteristic move, Harrington immediately called. It's possible that he sensed advantage here and took it. Irrespective of the reason, it was clear that unless the last two cards changed things, Harrington was going to be the winner. The turn was Qs, which gave no help. The river was Qh, which gave Harrington two pairs, and thus gave him the winning hand.

Dan Harrington is a very formidable opponent to be taken seriously. He may not win all tournaments, but he plays a very steady game to earn a good income from it, which cannot be said about all players. He is one of the rare conservative players in a game which has a history of rewarding the daring ones.

He has two bracelets in the WSOP to his credit both in 1995 and might not win more but his consistency always sees him through tough situations. He won the $2,500 No Limit Hold\'em winning $249,000 and the $10,000 No Limit Hold\'em World Championship grossing around $1,000,000 in earnings. And he is also a part of the elite club of players who have won both the WSOP main event and the WPT titles. In 2007, he won the Legends of Poker for a prize of $1,634,865. His live earnings exceed $6,500,000.