Apr-23-09
 | | Tabanus: Dan Harrington was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts on December 6, 1945. He is lawyer and a former champion backgammon player (World Cup of Backgammon Champion in 1980), U.S. chess master, and professional poker player. In 1971 he won the Massachusetts State Chess Championship. He is a former club champion of the Bolyston Chess Club. http://www.geocities.com/siliconval... |
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| Jul-15-10 | | theagenbiteofoutwit: Harrington might not be the best chess player that plays poker, put without a doubt he's the best poker player to hold a chess master's title. |
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| Aug-19-10 | | theagenbiteofoutwit: Dan Harrington wrote what's probably the best series of books ever written about no limit hole em' poker. If you're interested, check out the Harrington on Hold 'Em series. I'm currently re-reading the first volume, it's excellent. He's a conservative player and has earned over 6 million dollars at tournaments. His nickname at the poker table is <Action Dan> which is an ironic reference to the fact that Harrington is a very conservative player. |
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| Feb-06-12 | | King Death: < theagenbiteofoutwit: (Harrington's) nickname at the poker table is <Action Dan> which is an ironic reference to the fact that Harrington is a very conservative player.> Good old <Action Dan>! Mostly he does play tight but he makes some strange plays once in awhile. It's worked well for him too with a win at the Main Event of the WSOP. Till we meet again! |
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| Feb-07-12 | | RookFile: 6 million dollars?
I wish I was that conservative. |
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| Feb-07-12 | | King Death: < RookFile: 6 million dollars? I wish I was that conservative.>
There's a difference between just being conservative and knowing how to play, you know like the way you go around labeling your "favorite" chess master Nimzowitsch in dozens of posts instead of actually looking at his games. <Action Dan> has relatives who've done a few things in sports too. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C3%A... |
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| Feb-07-12 | | RookFile: I know that Dan Harrington as a chess player, was very strong on the white side of the Queen's Gambit Declined, and favored the Nge2 systems. |
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| Feb-07-12 | | theagenbiteofinwit: <Mostly he does play tight but he makes some strange plays once in awhile.> He does this thing where he switches up his play based on the position of the hands on his wristwatch. The thing about it is that even if you know that's what he's doing, you still don't know what he's doing. His whole philosophy of play and say Brunson's are a world apart. |
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| Feb-07-12 | | King Death: < theagenbiteofinwit: (Harrington's) whole philosophy of play and say Brunson's are a world apart.> You might say I'm familiar, I've played at the WSOP with both Harrington and Brunson. |
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| Feb-22-12 | | theagenbiteofinwit: I read in your profile u only play at the WSOP. I got started playing limit hold em and got used to the grind mentality. Ill play some NL ring games but Im conservative and I don't like having to change up my play just to keep up with the antes. |
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Feb-22-12
 | | HeMateMe: The "W'sop WOP?" You better hope the italian anti-defimation cosa nostra doesn't get wind of your chess club. Someone might be wearing cement booties, and hanging with Lucca Brazzi. |
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| Feb-23-12 | | theagenbiteofinwit: Nyet, etta Poker! |
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Dec-06-14
 | | perfidious: <HMM> Who's that guy Brasi anyway? Y'all mean the one sleeping with da fishes? Harrington was a master-strength player, but poker beckoned. He can play a little. |
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| Aug-09-15 | | zanzibar: His heart belongs to chess...
<I actually enjoyed chess more than poker," Harrington remembered from his home in Santa Monica, Calif. "To be profitable in chess though, you need to be top five or six players in the world and I wasn't good enough. Then I went to backgammon and that was more for financial reasons than competitive ones, but there really wasn't enough money there either, so I made it to poker, which I liked a lot and had a lot of money. I was happy to be part of that endeavor."> http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/poke... |
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| Aug-09-15 | | zanzibar: A very rare photo of Dan is here:
http://twchesssafari.blogspot.com/2... (Well, rare for me - I've never seen him without his Celtics/Bosox hat before) |
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| Aug-09-15 | | zanzibar: <Remarkably, more than half his winnings have come since the age of 55! > Same site. |
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| Aug-09-15 | | zanzibar: Boy, it's hard to find any more of his games on the web, even with -poker in the search! Here's another hat-less Harrington, looking quite a bit different, from ~1975 Bolyston CC: http://boylston-chess-club.blogspot... (The article is about Rogoff, but the photo has Harrington, standing, 2nd from right) I actually am familiar with the photo from Rogoff page - but missed the Harrington connection at the time. |
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Aug-09-15
| | perfidious: Somewhere, I (hope I still) have an old booklet from a Boylston CC tourney in the early 1970s which featured Harrington, John Curdo, Harry Lyman and possibly Bill Robertie in the mix. If that turns up, I will submit the games, one of which featured Curdo opening 1.c4 vs Lyman--only time in my life I have ever seen that! |
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| Aug-10-15 | | zanzibar: <perf> that would be great! If I have some time I'm going to the library tonight to see if any of his games showed up in the newspapers. He deserves at least a couple of more games here I think. |
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| Aug-10-15 | | zanzibar: : I found a slew of Harrington games in the local press from 1967-1972 (and later?).
I'll post an example or two, certainly his earliest, here soon. Maybe I can enter all of them in and put up the PGN on google drive, and we can decide if all or a select few get submitted to <CG>. Anyways, I guess the <Action Dan> label predated his poker days: <Though the Cheever's "A" tourney is note (sic) quite over, Daniel Harrington clinched first place when he drew his last game with David Scheffer. Harrington's score was 7.5-1.5, losing only to John Fernsler.Harrington, a Suffolk college student, showed considerable maturity in this tourney. One of his great assets was his ability to play solid and competent, thought not brilliant, chess in the opening, middle and end game. He showed great staying power, many of his games turning into wins not until their latter stages.> Chess
Boston Globe; Jun 25, 1967
pg. 38B |
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| Aug-11-15 | | zanzibar: As promised, the earliest game I've found is this
<Peters--Harrington (1968-10)> draw from the
<Greater Boston Championship>. The news article called it a French, but I think a closed Sicilian is more like it: <
[Event "Greater Boston Championship"]
[Site "Boston USA"]
[Date "1968.10.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Peters, Jack"]
[Black "Harrington, Dan"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[ECO "B25"]
[EventDate "1968.10.??"]
[Source "Chess (Dondis, H): Boston Globe (1968-11-03) p48_B "] 1.e4 e6 2.d3 c5 3.g3 Nc6 4.Bg2 g6 5.Nc3 Bg7 6.Be3 d6 7.f4 Nge7 8.Nf3
O-O 9.O-O Rb8 10.g4 f5 11.gxf5 exf5 12.Qe1 b5 13.a3 a5 14.Rc1 b4 15.
axb4 axb4 16.Nd1 Ba6 17.e5 Nd5 18.Ng5 Nxe3 19.Nxe3 Qe8 20.Nd5 Bc8 21.
Nc7 Qe7 22.Bd5+ Kh8 23.Nce6 Bxe6 24.Nxe6 Rfc8 25.Ng5 Nd8 26.Qh4 Bf8 27.
Bf7 h6 28.Bxg6 dxe5 29.Rce1 Qg7 30.Bxf5 Kg8 31.Bh7+ Kh8 32.Rxe5 Nf7
33.Rd5 hxg5 34.fxg5 Qxh7 35.Qxh7+ Kxh7 36.Rxf7+ Kg8 37.Rdd7 Rd8 38.c3
Rxd7 39.Rxd7 Bg7 40.d4 bxc3 41.bxc3 cxd4 1/2-1/2
>
Chess: U.S. gains berth in Olympiad
DONDIS, HAROLD
Boston Globe (Nov 3, 1968);
pg. 48_B |
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May-25-25
| | perfidious: <Remarkably, more than half his winnings have come since the age of 55! > Due in large part to the fact that Harrington's results below, plus a win in LA in 2007, accounted for over $3m. The fields became far larger during the 2000s, so it is not at all surprising that anyone active from that decade onwards would book more winnings. <He was the only player at the WSOP main event final tables in both 2003 (839 entrants) and 2004 (over 2500 entrants).> This was, perhaps, a greater feat than winning the 1995 championship due to the size of both fields. The last two years, the main event has drawn over 10k runners. |
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Kibitzing
