Daniel Santoro is not the most well-known poker player in the game today, but he definitely made a name for himself after this World Poker Tour Foxwoods event. Before this event, Santoro had a total live tournament earnings of $260,862, and he gave himself quite a bump on that total with his impressive win at this tournament. The first place prize was set at $449,910 that he pocketed, and he was involved in a few big hands at the final table, and one hand that determined his fate as the eventual champion.
The final table featured six players with Steven Brackesy starting atop the leaderboard with 1.81 million chips, and was followed up by Christian Harder (1.29 million), Santoro (1.16 million), Bob Carbone (588k), Eli Berg (496k), and Andy Frankenberger (374k). The first three eliminations happened fairly quickly, and the first elimination sent Berg home after only three hands. Frankenberger was the next to go, and after that came one of the biggest hands of the tournament.
It involved Brackesy and Santoro, who got involved pre-flop and were going back and forth before getting it all in. Brackesy flipped over A-4 suited to be quite a bit behind the pocket Queens that Santoro were holding. This pot put Santoro in a massive chip lead over the remaining players, and it ended up having Santoro matched up against Harder to decide who would win it all.
Heads up play kicked off with Santoro as the chip leader by almost 4 times Harder’s chip stack. Harder was forced all the way under 400k in chips before making a massive comeback and doubling up to get back into it. Harder’s incredible storm back saw him actually take the chip lead at one point before Santoro was able to turn it back around. The final hand of the tournament saw Santoro re-raise his opponent, which led to Harder to push the remainder of his chips into the middle. Santoro made the call with A-K, and was up against the pocket ten’s of his opponent. It wasn’t until the final card that Santoro was able to take the lead, and win the entire event.
While Santoro won the championship and the huge grand prize, Harder got a nice consolation prize of $248,962 for his run as well.