May 29 (Bloomberg)
-- Greg Raymer, a patent attorney from Stonington, Connecticut,
won the World Series of Poker championship late yesterday in Las
Vegas, winning $5 million.
Raymer, 39,
defeated a record field of 2,576 people from more than 30
countries. He won the seven-day tournament with a full house of
twos and eights, edging a smaller full house of twos and fours
held by David Anthony Williams, tournament officials said.
Williams, a
24-year-old math and economics major at Southern Methodist
University in Dallas, won $3.5 million for second place. Josh
Arieh, 29, a professional poker player from Atlanta, was third
and took home $2.5 million. Dan Harrington of Santa Monica,
California, the 1995 champion, was fourth and won $1.5 million.
"I played
the best poker of my life and I got as lucky as I've ever gotten
in my life,'' Raymer said in a statement distributed by
tournament officials. ``It's a dream come true.''
The No-Limit
Texas Holdem poker tournament was held at Binion's Horseshoe
Casino in Las Vegas as part of 33-event World Series that began
in April and awarded $49 million in prize money.
Harrah's
Entertainment Inc., the No. 2 U.S. casino company, bought the
rights to the event in March. Disney Co.'s ESPN cable- TV
network will air coverage of the World Series starting July 6.
Raymer is
known among his competitors as "Fossilman'' because he collects
fossils and sometimes displays them on the poker table.
Throughout the tournament, he wore a pair of snake- eye
reflective sunglasses from Disney World, organizers said.
