Although he is well known in poker, Steve Dannenmann is a CPA in Maryland.  He is very well known for his first appearance in the American poker playing scene at the 2005 World Series of Poker where he finished in second place to Joe Hachem in his very first attempt at playing in a live tournament.

In the 2005 WSOP main event that Dannenmann had achieved a second place finish, he won a total of $4,250,000, which he then split with a very dead friend of his who had given him half of the buy-in for the main event.

Dannenmann says that he would not have felt as comfortable or been such a success in this event or any others if he had not read Dan Harrington’s book.  This book was written on the end game of No Limit Hold ‘em live tournaments.  Dannenmann really feels like reading this book made him the success that he has been during his poker scenes.

Moreover, although during this 2005 WSOP main event Dannenmann had knocked out many of the previous WSOP event champions such as Mike Matusow; Matusow tutored Dannenmann afterwards in poker and remain good friends.

With his second place finish in the 2005 World Series of Poker main event, he was qualified for the 2005 WSOP Tournament of Champions that he attended and played, which resulted in a fifth place finish with total winnings of $100,000.

Dannenman has been known to say that poker is boring even though his total live earnings exceed $4 million, but he seems to still enjoy playing such and has one in the money finish in the World Poker Tour, however, he has not made it to a WPT final table in his poker career.  He has also come a long way in his own firm in Maryland and has no intentions on quitting his job to pursue poker full-time.