Champion of Poker

When most people think of the name David Benyamine, they typically think high-stakes cash game player. While this is true, Benyamine is also a fearsome tournament player as well. Poker was not always his intended career path. Benyamine had intended to become a professional Tennis player, but back problems forced him to give up that dream. He was then introduced to poker and the rest is history.

Tournament wise, Benyamine started to make a name for himself in France, making many final tables and taking down a couple of smaller events. His best finish before 2003 was a 2nd place finish at the European Championship where he finished 2nd.

In 2003 Benyamine won his first major title when he won the Grand Prix de Paris on the World Poker Tour. He took down $410,886 for this win and put himself on the tournament world map. Benyamine would continue to have success on the WPT as he has finished in the money in eight WPT events which included three final tables and his win in 2003. He made the final table of the 2004 L.A. Poker Classic where he finished 6th. He also made the final table of the 2008 Bellagio Cup where he finished 2nd tot take home $840,295. Benyamine also won the Battle of Champions II in 2005. To date, Benyamine has won over $1.45 Million on the World Poker Tour.

Until 2008, Benyamine had not experience much success at the World Series of Poker. His best finish had been a 6th place finish in an event in 2007. 2008 changes things as Benyamine made 2 final tables at the WSOP and just missed two more by just a couple of spots. He finished 3rd in the $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha Event and then went on to win his first WSOP bracelet in the $10,000 Omaha 8 or Better World Championship. At a final table that included Tony Ma, Mike Matusow, Ram Vaswani, and Toto Leonidas, Benyamine navigated his way through the table and kicked things into overdrive with three players left. He won his first bracelet and the $535,687 top prize.

Outside of tournament poker, Benyamine is one of the most feared high stakes cash game player in both live and online play. He is a regular on shows such as High Stakes Poker and Poker After Dark and regularly plays on Full Tilt Poker under his own name. Benyamine specializes in Pot Limit Omaha and has won more money playing Omaha cash games on Full Tilt in 2008 than anyone in the world.

To date, Benyamine has won over $3.3 Million in live tournaments. Of course, to put that in perspective, Benyamine is up almost 2 Million in online cash games alone for 2008 alone. Whether it is tournaments or cash games, David Benyamine is a force at the poker tables. At only 36, this high stakes pro will be tearing it up a the tables for decades to come.