Dan Santoro Wins WPT Foxwoods 2011
November 2, 2011 6:41 amDan Santoro has won the 2011 WPT Foxwoods World Poker Finals, after overcoming a field of 189 players over six days to lift the title, and collect the $449,910 first place prize.
The 23 year old New Yorker started the day as one of the big stacks in 3rd place and managed to keep his focus throughout the 200-hand six-man final table to eventually claim his first WPT victory.
First to exit the final table at the Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut was a short-stacked Eli Berg in 6th ($83,580). Three hands into the game, Berg raised pre-flop with K-Q and then was called again by Chistian Harder on a K-7-7 flop. A 10 on the turn saw Berg check-raising Harder all-in only to discover his opponent was holding pocket aces and so just like that he was out.
Soon after, Chistian Harder was dealt another powerful hand, this time the pocket kings before then dispatching Andy Frankenberger in 5th ($99,585), whose A-10 pre-flop shove failed to improve sufficiently on a 9-5-4-5-10 board.
However, it was now time for Dan Santoro to shine after getting into a battle of the blinds preflop raising war with fellow big-stack Steven Brackesy. Unfortunately for him, Steven Brackesy’ six-bet shove with Ac-4c was in bad shape against the pocket queens of his opponent and so he was out in 4th for a $129,816 payday.
Dan Santoro was now the chip-leader and after being dealt pocket aces and eliminating Bob Carbone with pocket tens in 3rd spot ($166,271), he took an almost 4 to 1 chip lead over Christian Harder into the heads-up phase of the competition.
Nevertheless, Harder doubled-up three times and took the chip lead on several occasions, before finally being dispatched holding pocket tens to Santoro’ A-K. With the board falling J-8-5-2-K, Christian Harder collected $248,962 for his runner-up finish, while Dan Santoro was crowned the 2011 WPT Foxwoods, and also collected a $25,500 ticket for the WPT World Championship.