Poker Player Chooses Tournament Action Over Niece's Wedding

08:23
29 Jun

A North Dakota man skipped a family wedding to travel to Las Vegas for a poker tournament and ended up winning it for $367,801. Harlen Miller, from Bismarck, disappointed his niece after choosing an $1,100 buy-in event in the Mid-Stakes Poker Tour at the Venetian over attending the biggest day in her life in Montana.

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Gamble Pays Off

63-year-old Miller is a retired office supply store owner who has played poker for around 15 years. He reckons he has now won more than $500,000 in the live scene and had a special feeling about this tournament so much that there was no way he couldn’t go to get some casino jackpot.

Miller said:

"I skipped my niece's wedding to come play this event. I just had a really strong feeling about this tournament, I had to go. At least now I can get her a better wedding present."

And so it was off to Sin City; quite a change from the mountains of Montana.

The tournament saw 2,790 entries spread over four separate starting flights, creating a prize pool of $2,692,350. One-by-one Miller’s opponents fell by the wayside until he found himself heads-up against Ryan Dodd with a considerable chip disadvantage.

It was looking like an uphill struggle until two quick double-ups gave Miller an unexpected lead, before a standard clash between his pocket queens into Dodd’s ace-jack completed a well-deserved victory.