You got me reading this thread again.

I haven’t heard about him in ages. Hope he is ok.

The OP stopped posting only months after this thread. Confirmed busto. I would not be surprised if Action Dan ended up taking him to the cleaners.

This thread took my back to the day when older guys won.

Actually I just checked. He was 50 when he won the WSOP. Seemed older.

Certainly a younger man’s game nowadays.

Edit: Last year’s WSOP was 56 years old.

I thought I saw Dan Harrington on a stream from The Trooper a couple weeks ago. Trooper was walking through several casinos, and Im 95% sure I saw him at a poker table at Bellagio (I think it was Bellagio). Some other people in the chat also thought the same thing... but I cant find which stream it was now. I thought I took a screenshot, but cant find it now.

Hope it was him, he looked like he always has... Though I think he lives in California, so not sure why he would be in Vegas so soon after things started to open up.

Dan Harrington

Living on the verge of death for more than 11 years

Brad Owen played in a cash game that included Dan Harrington. Here is the link; vlog is from about a year ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5-0bU1IVj0

Play with Dan at the Hustler pre covid. Quite the rock.

i miss the days of 10x preflop opens
what a time to be alive

And I will reply with an affirmation that your post made me laugh literally out loud. The image itself is great.

Pretty good chance those two good samaritans aren't poker players, so I would imagine trying to explain why you're laughing so hard is a near impossibility, too.

What's crazy is that the OP of this almost certainly has quit poker due to going broke due to recklessness, while Dan Harrington still has a bankroll and can play 10-20NL anytime he wishes.

uhh, have you sat down at a 1-2 or 2-5 live table anytime recently? you might be pleasantly surprised.

Pretty good chance the OP like many others playing over their head from back then went broke


1/2 no
i did play some 2/5 two card torture this year and definitely did not see 10x opens

Since we are talking again about a thread that was originally posted 12 years ago, I'll share a hand that happened at about that same time...


It was about 2008, give or take a year or two. I was seated in one of the WPT Main Events at the Bellagio (I forgot which one), but was at the same table as Dan Harrington and Dutch Boyd. I can't remember the action in the hand anymore, but after the flop, and with Dan and Dutch still having a lot of chips, Dutch makes a bet, Dan raises, and Dutch three bets. While Dan is contemplating what to do, they start talking to each other. Actually, its Dutch doing much of the talking, mostly about completely random, unrelated topics. The banter goes on for a few minutes, until Dutch starts ranting about what a bad spot Dan is in, or something like that. Then he looks Dan in the eye and says, "Have you ever been forced to drink your own urine to survive?". And before Dan could answer, Dutch gets up out of his chair and walks right out of the room onto the balcony of the (then) Fontana Lounge and stands looking at the Bellagio fountains. We all start looking at each other until someone asks if his hand is dead since he left the game with pending action. Dan then told the table that he didn't want anyone calling the clock or the floor, but to wait patiently for Dutch to return. After what seemed to be a very long time, someone who knew Dutch was able to get him to come back to the table to finish the hand. To be honest, I don't even remember who won the hand, but I do remember how classy I thought Dan Harrington was in that situation. And in case you were wondering, Dan also confirmed that he never drank his own urine.

Dutch Boyd had it all and lost it all.

He was so close to having a major poker site to rival PokerStars.

I always thought he looked pretty cool in 2003 when he made that deep run with Moneymaker. Then he was with the Crew right? Wasn't he good friends with Scott Fishman? What ever happened to that dude? And on the rail with Dutch if I recall in '03 was Brett Jungblut. He seemed to drop off the face of the earth too. I remember an episode of the wsop where Marco Traniello was getting Brett to wear a suit and look dapper lol. That was. The last I remember seeing of him and Fishman. Anyone have any updates?

Ancient times, right? I haven’t heard those names in ages.

The Crew!

Russ did win a WSOP event I believe.

I think it was taxing owing so many poker players money from PokerSpot. They were pretty livid hearing him cry poverty yet having money to play in big events.

Relevant:



I just watched the 2003-2005 main events again because PokerGo is re-releasing all that stuff. Those guys definitely got a lot of coverage. They were presented as this sort of "next big thing" poker version of the brat pack. Dutch had the deep run in 2003, Fischman won two bracelets in 2004, and Jungblut won one the same year. They kind of tapered off after that though, maybe a combination of booming field sizes and regression to the mean. Fischman's last Hendon Mob entry is from 2013. Jungblut doesn't have a six figure score since that bracelet win in 2004, but still seems to play some stuff based on his Hendon page. Boyd has had the best results since those early years and still seems to play some events. I recall seeing a semi-recent post on 2P2 that he was actually dealing at Wynn now and was trying to get into the management side of things, but I don't know anything about it beyond that.

basically most of them were dbags
all of them thought they were a lot better than they really were
none of them were smart with their money
and now they're out of poker or trying to get staked

to be fair to boyd he got the wynn job as mentioned and was actually a good dealer the few times he dealt at my table.

They were way too young with too much money.

The way Russ handled the PokerSpot wind-down was a debacle.

He used to be very active on rec.gambling.poker and had cringe worthy exchanges with people asking to withdraw money. He would lie and ended up berating them. It was obviously a stressful time and it got to him.

He was a ‘character’ back in the day and got pretty good tv time.

That’s awesome that he is dealing.

Yea he's been humbled a lot.
He still plays some, selling action.
Like i said he was a good dealer , friendly and always thanked people for their tips even if it was a dollar on a huge pot. It seemed quite genuine.

Those episodes from like 2004-2006 were imo must watch. That was when poker exploded and we were getting to watch literally almost every bracelet event on espn. And then the Taj main event and others. It was a really fun time for poker fans. I still remember that Thunder Keller episode when he won the bracelet and that guy James Sousa and Eskimo Clark were going back and forth. And Sousa was bluffing over and over with complete crap smh. I mean there was really big money on the line, I believe it was a 5k event and Sousa was acting like it was a $50 buy in. Had the chip lead and bluffed it all away to Keller. Eskimo and James Sousa are both deceased now.

As for Thunder Keller he lost a lot of weight if I recall and I remember seeing him on tv a few years later a couple of times and he was so damn boring. The guy didn't speak. Just sat at the table not saying anything. I get that he lost a lot of weight but did he lose his personality too? When he was the big guy he seemed to be the life of the table.

Boyd was involved in more shady dealings, using site names similar to twoplustwo and got sued. I don't think he was dealing long term, but no one who could beat 2/5NL or whatever would take a job dealing. Plus he has a law degree.

The way Harrington's style was described in OP was not optimal for that sort of game, but probably a lot better than calling 10x raises with marginal hands etc., like a lot of players in that game were doing.

Boyd is living proof that intelligence is something completely distinct from judgement. Two absolutely different places in the brain.

You're intelligent enough to build the first online poker site, but you lack the judgement to run it in a way that scales up and maximizes what it's actually worth. Even his proposed bailout deal (that would've made the players whole) could've been worked to his advantage, keep some minor equity stake and let the grown-ups run it... and yeah, it then becomes what Stars is now and now, you're rich.

His domain thing, same deal. He was smart enough to realize the power of decent .com domain names during the tail-end of the "domaining" game, but lacked the judgement to stay away from blatant TM infringing domains and ****ed around with someone who realized that on a long timeline, he was absolutely +ev in tournament poker, would eventually bink something decent and that would be an easy judgement to enforce (wait for him to run deep, send down your lawyer with a writ of garnishment to the cage and get his winnings before they even pay him out).

2+2 Publishing vs Boyd is actually a fairly important case in that niche. Very very very few victims of TM infringement take the time to run down a pissant domainer and smash them in court. They usually get a letter from a lawyer and hand it over, or its cheaper to UDRP. Now, victims can cite that case and make them settle for damages.

hahaha i remember sousa kept bluffing
and there was a hand where keller 3 bet him with qq and the flop came kkx (or he had kk and flop qqx same thing either way)he bet sousa just snap all ins and keller folded
they weren't even super deep
sousa had air

poker was so much fun to watch back then

the wsop is unbearable to watch today

He called with jack high!

I think Keller got the surgery done the same as my really overweight uncle who then lost a lot of weight. My uncle seemed to lose a lot of his personality as well, perhaps that’s just what happens