A self-described “venture capitalist and investor” from California has made his best investment yet–he turned a $1,500 buy-in fee into over half a million dollars!

The money man, David Daneshgar, from Westlake Village, California, USA, has won Event #52 at the 2008 World Series of Poker (WSOP) in Las Vegas–a $1,500 buy-in, no-limit Texas hold ‘em tournament that had 2,693 participants, 270 payouts and a total prize pool of about $3.7 million.

For the big win, “Diamond Dave” takes home a whopping $624,443, in addition to his first career WSOP gold bracelet.

For those who are counting, that’s better than a 30,000% return on his $1,500 investment.

And it only took three days!

Finishing runnerup in the event was Scott Sitron of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA, juicing $385,974.

Third was Dan Heimiller of Los Angeles, California, USA, donning $275,695.

Fourth was Farzad “Freddie” Rouhani of Gaithersburg, Maryland, USA, gathering $231,584.

Fifth was Corwin Cole of Covina, California, USA, culling $189,311.

Sixth was Matt Matros of Bronxville, New York, USA, mitting $148,875.

Seventh was Andrey “Zaya” Zaichenko of Moscow, Russia, rushing off with $112,116.

Eighth was Jeff Courtney of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, USA, courting $84,546.

Ninth was Voitto Rintala of Helsinki, Finland, finishing with $57,712.

Tenth was Gary Biggar of Cambridge, Ontario, Canada, bigger by $36,391.

(E-mail Tom Somach at [email protected].)