The WSOP Main Event's first Canadian Winner - Jonathan Duhamel
Wednesday, November 24, 2010 11:44 AM
It was a most anticipated lineup of the November Nine, as the Top 9 qualifiers for the WSOP Main Event lined up for an exciting final table showdown, broadcasted on ESPN at the Rio All-Suites Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.The final table was played from November 6-8th with ESPN's coverage not to be missed by millions of poker players all over the United States. The final table (or November Nine as they are called) featured a heavy set lineup of 8 poker pros including Jason Senti, Joseph Cheong, John Dolan, Jonathan Duhamel, Michael "the Grinder" Mizrachi, Matthew Jarvis, John Racener, Filippo Candio and 1 amateur Cuong "Soi" Nguyen.
Jonathan Duhamel came onto the final table with a heavy deep stack of 65,975,000 chips, which was almost more than 20 million chips more than 2nd spot John Dolan who had 46,250,000 chips.For the amateur Soi Nguyen, making his way through the field of the November Nine would prove to be a challenge and not an easy one with only 9,650,000 chips.
The final table broadcasted on ESPN was played at the Rio All-Suites Hotel in Las Vegas. Early in the game Jonathan Duhamel, got a few unlucky hands against a few opponents and lost part of his stack even going down to about half of his original 65 million chips. He bounced back and started to play a more aggressive style which suits him perfectly and found himself taking on some huge pots at the right time.
Jonathan Duhamel, a former college finance major from Boucherville, Quebec and loves to play hockey and loves the Montreal Canadiens "the Habs" and his support team in Las Vegas definitely showed that with their encouraging support wearing Montreal Canadiens jerseys and cheering him out loud in full force.
As the night rolled on, Jonathan started hitting some solid hands and soon started to dominate the pack of the November Nine. One player at a time was being eliminated to the soon showdown of the final three including Jonathan Duhamel, Joseph Cheong and John Racener. Then a showdown came between Jonathan Duhamel and Joseph Cheong with Duhamel holding QQ against Cheong's A7 for 176 million chips in the pot. Duhamel's QQ held up to take the pot and crush Joseph Cheong to be eliminated shortly thereafter. The final head's up hand came against John Racener from Florida and Duhamel had AJ against Racener's K8, the AJ held up to a board of 4,4,9,6,5 and Jonathan Duhamel became the first Canadian to ever win the WSOP Main Event title and ultimately take home the grand prize of $8,944,138.
The WSOP Main Event had a total 7,319 entries or poker players and the final WSOP November Nine finished as follows:
1st $8,944,138 - Jonathan Duhamel
2nd $5,545,855 - John Racener
3rd $4,129,979 - Joseph Cheong
4th $3,092,497 - Filippo Candio
5th $2,332,960 - Michael Mizrachi
6th $1,772,939 - John Dolan
7th $1,356,708 - Jason Senti
8th $1,045,738 - Matthew Jarvis
9th $811,823 - Soi Nguyen