Canadian Hope In 2016 WSOP Main Event

The WSOP Main Event is arguably the most prestigious and the most popular poker tournament in the annual calendar. This year a Canadian poker player has reached the final table, which is known as the November Nine. This poker tournament takes a brake once the final table is set and reconvenes in November to determine the winner. The winner of the 2016 WSOP Main Event will take home US$8 million. The 9th place prize is US$1 million, which is now the minimum that any player will get.

The only Canadian player in the November Nine is Griffin Benger. He hails from Toronto, Ontario and is 31 years of age. He is ranked 7th with a chip count of 26,175,000. The leader of the November Nine, Cliff Josephy, starts the final table with 74,600,000 chips. So Benger has a mountain to climb but comes with credentials to do that.

Benger has 13 previous WSOP cashes totalling US$231,201. He will considerably improve upon that in November. Rank wise, his best performance in WSOP events was twice finishing in 14th place. That will go up to at least 9th place if not better. Benger has cashed twice in WSOP Main Events, once in 2014 in 90th place and prior to that in 2012 in 304th place. This year, he participated only in the Main Event and that too only because he won a seat through an online qualifying tournament.

Outside of WSOP, Benger has more impressive achievements. His total winnings in live poker tournaments is US$2,395,406, including a first place US$1 million cash in the 2014 Shark Tank session in London. Benger is heavily into online poker as well and was ranked as the No. 1 online poker player in 2011. He plays under the alias Flush_Entity at PokerStars and Full Tilt, the online poker sites owned by the Canadian company Amaya Gaming. Benger is a former world champion in the Counter-Strike computer game.

So how has Benger been spending the time since the constitution of the November Nine? On Twitter he posted that he has been engaging in light reading – learning about griffin, the half lion and half eagle mythical creature that ruled both the land and the air. Only one Canadian has ever won the WSOP Main Event in the long history of the game. That is Jonathan Duhamel, who took the bracelet in 2011. Benger will do his best to repeat the feat of his compatriot.

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