From Pool Champion to Poker Champion

JAM

JAM

I am the storm
Silver Member
That's the story of David Benyamine:

Benyamine plays regularly in some of the highest-stakes cash poker games in the world. In recent years, he has been on the unofficial short list as one of the greatest players in the game not to have won a WSOP victory, until now.

Benyamine was born in Paris, France. He aspired to be a professional tennis player and had the talent to succeed at one point. However, a painful back injury forced him to take up other competitive pursuits.

After retiring from professional tennis, Benyamine focused largely on shooting pool and eventually became one of the best pocket billiards players in France.

Benyamine says that if it were not for poker, he would have loved to have been an archeologist. He says he enjoys discovering new things. However, Benyamine also stated matter-of-factly, "I also think I would have found poker one way or another. I have too much gamble in me."

When asked about the importance of winning a WSOP gold bracelet, Benyamine was overjoyed. However, the self-confident Frenchman added, "Winning is always important to me. But I never thought I had anything to prove."

Seems like so many pool players have emigrated to the poker scene. I have never heard of this French pool champion, David Benyamine, but it looks like he's a strong competitor and has found his niche!

Here's the article: http://www.pokerplayernewspaper.com/viewarticle.php?id=2707

I'm going to Atlantic City and see if I can do the same! Tropicana or bust, here I come!

Picture of Dave Benyamine below, who won his first gold bracelet. Screw the bracelet. Gimme the cheese, man! :grin:

JAM
 

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Dartman said:
He cashed in 4 events so far at this years wsop - impressive.
http://www.worldseriesofpoker.com/players/playerprofile.asp?playerID=225

btw - thanks for the rep the other day (10,000)
Click to expand...

My pleasure! :smile:

I had never heard of this Frenchman, but I just learned this morning from my boyfriend that he sees him all the time playing on Full Tilt AND has seen him in Vegas many times playing for high stakes.

The rumor mill says he lost $5 million playing poker online and was broke for a while. So this win is a good one for him.

According to his bio on Full Tilt: When he's not playing tournaments or the world's highest-stakes cash games, you can find David spending time with his fiance and fellow Full Tilt Poker pro, Erica Schoenberg or playing online at Full Tilt Poker.

Check out this Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Benyamine

JAM
 

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JAM said:
The rumor mill says he lost $5 million playing poker online and was broke for a while. So this win is a good one for him.
Click to expand...

David actually did lose big in 2006 and early 2007 online but apparently won a ton of cash live in that same time period. He has however been killing the online cash games on Full Tilt over the past 12 months and if you look at all sites over the last 12 months he has actually made more online than any other player (over Six Million!!) He is a very very good player (dont know how good is pool game is/was though :) )

Here are the top 10 winners and losers for the last 12 months:

Top winners and losers
(All sites, All Gametypes, 2007-06-27 to 2008-06-27)

Winners
Results Sessions Hands Hours
David Benyamine $6.198.076,80 1935 221830 2329,31
KaiBuxxe $3.548.158,20 603 53958 557,59
ICallSoWhat $3.154.928,90 900 97226 1136,75
durrrr $2.645.548,60 1718 151954 1784,61
Urindanger $2.397.962,00 1729 166814 1567,42
FinddaGrind $2.341.627,11 388 40528 483,16
OMGClayAiken $2.313.185,84 1518 132394 1513,46
pr1nnyraid $2.100.547,44 347 41331 289,83
CHUFTY $1.991.673,80 1340 116036 1624,49
LrsLzk $1.385.659,84 454 48246 301,96

Losers
Results Sessions Hands Hours
noataima $-3.967.908,04 245 32179 390,94
Ziigmund $-2.803.742,15 1390 118202 1111,07
lady marmelade $-2.621.999,20 159 20805 283,62
patatino $-2.588.078,75 176 25707 289,22
Gus Hansen $-2.550.062,95 1578 127929 1756,86
Niki Jedlicka $-2.094.983,39 402 29573 317,44
sbrugby $-1.935.178,10 757 72831 650,19
Brandon Adams $-1.375.076,55 162 13028 130,90
Bleachbum $-1.097.457,00 76 8562 102,82
present $-787.109,80 345 31461 301,69
 
From pool to poker

Hey dont forget Flakes, who was a very good player in his own right who moved over to poker to win several large tourneys, including 2 million in Atlantic City in one event
 
I just came back from the WSOP where Benyamine won that gold bracelet. From what I heard he is a very very good pool player. Not a Negraneau. One of the best heads up cash player.
I was going to enter into the Seniors event as I always do but played satellites and couldnt get into the money. There were 2200 in the field (broke the record) and thought the odds were against me. Guys like Johnny CHan and Amarillo SLim were in the field. Me playing in it is like me playing Archer even up in the US Open. So opted for tournaments at Venetian, Ceasars, and Binions. More of a chance for amateurs like me. Great tournaments. $220 to 2K. Came close, 6 and 13 out of the money, but no cigar. Cant wait for next year.
 
Oh my goodness, we were just talking about the other player that made it to the final two players in the WSOP - he's a former 9 Ball player from the UK!!!

Can you believe it? What a coincidence!!!

You can read HIS route to the final table here on his blog, it's the story entitled "every dog has it's day":
www.pokerhitsquad.blogspot.com/

And read about us gossiping about him here: :)
http://www.pro9.co.uk/html/viewtopic.php?topic=1985&forum=4

Edit: Hopefully I'm quick enough to edit this and point out that actually it was a different event at the WSOP, and NOT the same table!!! Blimey, how many bracelets do they give away at the WSOP?
 
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Nick Schulman has to be one of the only people on earth - if not the only - to be in the 100/2,000,000 club.

Run a hundred balls, win over two million dollars in a single poker tournament. And if he's not the only person ever to do that, he's probably the only one to ever run the century both before and after winning the money.

And if he's not the only one to do that, I feel confident it's a really, really small club. :cool:

- Steve
 
Here's a picture taken last week of David Benyamine playing in a World Series bracelet tournament, which he ended up winning.

Here he is in the earlier rounds. He's the player on the end, wearing the light-colored clothing.

JAM
 

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We had an outstanding pool player from my hometown,
Charley Duvalier, Clarksburg, WV, who later became
a fine poker player in Vegas.
For a long time had a pool room in Va. with Weenie Beenie.
 
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