I Have an Eye For Talent

Very early on in the career of Jon Bones Jones, after I knew he had two brothers at Syracuse, and after I'd seen him fight a couple times, I knew he was destined for greatness. Jones has fulfilled his promise so now I'm on to a new prodigy.
Just hours after I wrote about the great World Series of Poker Loni Harwood was having, the Staten Island native took her seat in the final $1500 No Limit Hold Em event of the summer.
Two days later, Harwood took down the bracelet and the $609,000 first prize, pushing her total winnings for the summer to roughly $875,000.

Thanks to her victory in this event, I was able to learn a little more about her through this WSOP interview. She is born and raised in Staten Island but after college moved to Miami (that explains the Heat hat). But I still don't know why Staten Island Advance hasn't done a story on her yet. Maybe this (plus my e-mails and tweets) will get their attention).

Here's Harwood's winner interview with the very lovely Lynn Gilmartin.



Maybe she was just nervous but girls from Staten Island usually talk a lot more than this.

Just for the record, Harwood did get very lucky to win this event. She was all in with 7 players left holding AK against her opponent's pocket aces. But she caught a queen and a jack on the flop and a 10 on a river. She didn't mention that particular hand in the interview but did acknowledge "a lot of rungood." But in this event and in the previous one when she finished 4th, I noticed excellent, aggressive play from her.

Very impressed with her play and happy to call her my homegirl.