WSOP November Nine Winner

The 23 year-old Canadian, Jonathan Duhamel, has taken the title of the World Series of Poker, November Nine, Main Event and takes home a staggering £5,550,000 in prize money along with the coveted poker bracelet. 

He reached the final of the Hold‘em main event by winning a satellite tournament ahead of 7,319 other poker players back in July. By the time he sat down at the final table at the start of the weekend he still had relatively little live experience, cashing in at an EPT event and two WSOP tourneys, but he still went into the endgame as chip leader. 

Even with the likes of Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi in the match, the bookmakers still fancied the young college dropout to take the prize as he held such a chip advantage, holding 30% of the chips in play at the start. After a lot of changes in chip lead over the weekend and as the field gradually whittled down, Duhamel entered the face off against John Racener with a massive 6-1 advantage. 

With those kinds of odds it was only going to be a matter of time, really, and in the end it only took a couple of hours and 43 hands to accomplish the task. Duhamel, holding an As; Jh, felt confident and pushed Racer to go all in and, holding a Kd; 8d, he responded. The river finally read 9d; 4d; 4c; 6c; 5c. That brought the contest to an end and the Duhamel fans erupted. 

Winning the competition, Duhamel said, was a dream come true. “Its like the most beautiful day of my life,” he added.