"Action" Dan Harrington

b. December 6, 1945

Dan Harrington is a quiet Irishman from Cambridge, Massachusetts. Dignified, stately and smart, Harrington is a modern day “Renaissance Man.”

The limited resume that Harrington has shared with the world includes many incredible feats: champion backgammon player, U.S. chess master, 1971 Massachusetts State Chess champion and former New Jersey State Chess champion, bankruptcy lawyer, real estate investor, and former MIT team member who helped crack roulette and blackjack.

Little is known about Harrington’s childhood or when he learned about poker. In college, however, Harrington played cards against some of the most unlikely people.

Harrington attended Boston’s Suffolk University as an undergraduate, but he often played poker against students from Harvard, including the now super-rich Bill Gates of Microsoft.

In 1980, Harrington moved to Philadelphia and started taking a train to the Mayfair Club in New York two or three times a week to play poker.

At the Club, he met and played against other future poker professionals like Howard “The Professor” Lederer, Al Krux and Erik Seidel. It was during those games that Harrington gave himself his nickname, “Action Dan.”

Harrington is famous for his tight-aggressive play, so the word “action” is not one his opponents would use to describe him—that’s why Harrington used it for himself. Harrington reasons that when his opponents hear “Action Dan” but realize that he is actually a very conservative player, it will cause confusion about his table image and give him an edge.

It’s possible that his trickster nickname worked, because in 1987 Harrington flew to Las Vegas to enter his first World Series of Poker tournament and placed sixth, pocketing over $43,000. He was knocked out of the tournament holding “A-Q” when his opponent had “A-6.”

Eight years later, in 1995, Harrington came back to the WSOP and did better than 6th—he won the bracelet and $1,000,000. He has been quoted on several occasions discussing the “luck” factor in poker. Where he was knocked out holding “A-Q” in 1987, one of the hands that propelled him to the final table in 1995 was beating “A-Q” with a pair of Kings, and a short while later using pocket Jacks to bust “A-A.”

Today, Harrington lives in California and manages a stock market investment firm. He still plays in big poker tournaments, and is one of only five players who have won both a WSOP main event and a World Poker Tour title.

When he’s not playing or investing, Dan is writing books on poker. He is most noted for his Harrington on Hold ‘em and Harrington on Cash Games series, in which there are five volumes combined.

Harrington interestingly doesn’t consider himself a poker professional, just a poker player. Even with a tournament winnings total of over $6,500,000, he doesn’t play nearly as many games or tournaments as other players. But when he does play, people know to respect him for his high standard of starting hands and conservative style, and of course his bright green Boston Red Sox cap.

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