Posts Tagged ‘2010 WSOP Main Event’

Jonathan Duhamel responds to Hachem’s Comments on WSOP Ambassadorship

Saturday, March 15th, 2014

One subject that’s frequently come up this year is the level of responsibility that WSOP Main Event champions bear in regard to making poker fun/inviting. Joe Hachem is the one who kicked this discussion off when he said that Main Event champs need to be ambassadors for the game. He specifically called out Jamie Gold and Jerry Yang for “destroying the legacy of the world champion.”

He didn’t elaborate, but we can only assume that Hachem thinks both players have done a poor job of promoting poker after winning the Main Event. The Aussie may also think that Gold’s ME bracelet being auctioned off and Yang’s tax troubles have further tarnished what it means to be a champ.

In any case, 2010 WSOP Main Event winner Jonathan Duhamel recently gave his take on ME champs and young players in general. Writing from his PokerStars blog, Duhamel doesn’t totally agree with Hachem, but he does point out that everybody bears some kind of responsibility in making poker fun and keeping recreational players around. He wrote the following two excerpts in his post:

Joe mentioned Jamie Gold and Jerry Yang in his comments (who won in 2006 and 2007) and how those two kind of disappeared from the poker scene after winning their titles, but to me that’s not necessarily good or bad. Sometimes a career in poker is not for everyone, especially for guys who have other jobs or families as can be the case for players who are a little older. Not everyone who wins the WSOP Main Event wants to tour all of the time or continue playing tournaments, and that is absolutely their choice.

(cont’d later) So Joe’s making a call to everyone — Main Event champions, young players, and those with more experience, too — to keep in mind when playing live to be friendly and do what we can to make sure everyone is having fun. Obviously the recreational players aren’t going to come back if they don’t have fun, and that hurts not just them but everyone.

Duhamel also cited posts that he liked from Daniel Negreanu and Phil Galfond, two more guys who present broader visions for what can keep poker entertaining.

The overall takeaway from Duhamel’s post is that all successful pros need to work at keeping both profits and fun in mind. After all, if the recreational players don’t keep coming back, the dead money drives up in poker and you’ll have less available profits, smaller game selection and a poker world that looks more like 2001.

Phil Hellmuth in Position to win 2012 WSOPE Main Event

Thursday, October 4th, 2012

With $16,159,430 in live tournament winnings and a record 12 WSOP gold bracelets, it seems like Phil Hellmuth has won just about everything. But the reality is that there are titles the Poker Brat hasn’t won including the WSOPE Main Event. Interestingly enough, the Poker Brat is in a good position to add the 2012 WSOPE Main Event title to his decorated resume since he leads the final table with 3,434,000 chips.

But it’s worth mentioning that he leads by the slimmest of margins because Sergii Baranov is right behind him with 3,339,000 chips. The Ukrainian businessman is an amateur player who’s won two EPT side events in his career.

Joseph Cheong (1.966 million) is definitely a player of interest on this final table since he finished third place in the 2010 WSOP Main Event. Thanks to this $4,130,059 cash and plenty of other strong tournament finishes, Cheong has racked up $5,377,687 in career winnings.

Both Stephane Albertini (1.162m) and Christopher Brammer (851k) are certainly formidable players. Both of these poker pros have experienced considerable success on the live tournament circuit and will be looking to add their biggest career cashes.

One more player that should definitely be discussed here is Jason Mercier. Sure the Florida native has one of the smallest remaining chip stacks, but his experience definitely makes him someone to watch. It would be nice to see Mercier collect a big cash since he’s struggled in 2012 – or at least struggling for a guy who’s collected $7,912,297 in live tourneys.

With just one more day to go in the WSOPE Main Event, we’ll get to see the winner crowned tonight. Hellmuth would certainly provide a marquee winner, but both Cheong and Mercier are well-noted players as well.

2012 WSOPE Main Event Final Table

1. Phil Hellmuth – 3,434,000 chips
2. Sergii Baranov – 3,339,000
3. Joseph Cheong – 1,966,000
4. Stephane Albertini – 1,162,000
5. Christopher Brammer – 851,000
6. Stephane Girault – 664,000
7. Jason Mercier – 652,000
8. Paul Tedeschi – 543,000

Jonathan Duhamel Troubles Continue

Tuesday, January 17th, 2012

Back on December 22nd, we brought you the Jonathan Duhamel robbery story, where two men broke into his Montreal home, stole cash and his 2010 WSOP Main Event bracelet, and beat the poker pro senseless. Towards the end of this story, we also talked about some of the other poker pros who’ve gotten into similar troubles, which could be a product of who they associate with and their partying habits.

Getting to the point, Jonathan Duhamel found himself in yet another bad situation at the 2012 PCA players party. German poker pro Martin Finger alleges that Duhamel got drunk, and started mouthing off to him in the Bahamas club where the party was held. Interestingly enough, the 2011 EPT Prague winner also said that he was the person who got thrown out of the club by security after the two began arguing.

Still angry about the verbal altercation he had with Duhamel in the club, Finger waited outside until the Canadian came out. Once Duhamel did show his face, Finger punched him before security rushed in to stop a possible fight.

It’s kind of hard to solely rely on Finger’s word in this story because he was arrested during EPT London for smashing in a restaurant door because he was hungry and they were closed. However, we don’t get a side of the story from Duhamel because he was too drunk to know what was going on as you can see from this tweet:

Just landed in Montreal, head still hurting after an amazing nigh out yeaterday! Really happy to be home for a few days and see my people.

Looking at the bigger picture here, you have to wonder about the kind of lifestyle that Jonathan Duhamel is living here. He hooks up with Bianca Rojas-Latraverse, who turned out to be crazy enough to plan a robbery against her ex-boyfriend. Now he’s getting so drunk that he gets punched in the face, and probably isn’t totally clear on what happened.

Perhaps he needs to step back and evaluate his lifestyle because, while he was recently the victim in a terrible robbery/beating, his actions could lead to more trouble in the future.

Jonathan Duhamel Robbery shows Trend in Poker World

Thursday, December 22nd, 2011

The poker world was shocked today to find out that 2010 WSOP Main Event champion Jonathan Duhamel had been bound, beaten and robbed at his Montreal home. According to Duhamel’s account, the robbers forced their way into his house early in the morning, then started attacking him. Eventually, they tied him up, and began hitting the poker pro repeatedly until he told them where his valuables were.

And the items they took were valuable indeed as the robbers stole Duhamel’s 2010 WSOP Main Event bracelet, along with a Rolex Submarine watch that came courtesy of PokerStars. The 24-year-old spoke about the valuable items by saying, “I won’t hide the fact that these two items have a much larger value for me than their commercial value, and I really hope we will be able to retrieve them in a near future.” Hopefully, Duhamel can eventually recover the stolen bracelet and watch since his name is on them.

Moving past the Jonathan Duhamel robbery, a bigger problem may be at stake here since the Canadian is just the latest poker pro to be the victim of a robbery. Early this year, Jennifer “Jennicide” Leigh had her room safe broken into at the 2011 WSOP. Leigh had a few thousand dollars in the safe, and suspected that it may have been an inside job by hotel staff members.

Much like Duhamel, Scott Montgomery had a scary robbery experience, but to a different degree. A knife-wielding man demanded that Montgomery empty his pockets in a Bellagio restroom; the Canadian obliged, giving the man over $2,000.

One more recent incident involved Kayvan Payman, who was robbed of €4,000 at the EPT Barcelona tournament. Apparently, Payman was leaving the bar with friends, and got ahead of them before having several Spanish thugs surround him and demand money. After being robbed, the poker pro ran back to find his friends, and they chased after the criminals. Eventually, they came upon a local restaurant, where two men not related to the robbers attacked the group with a machete and frying pan.

Fortunately, Payman and his friends weren’t seriously hurt, but the rash of poker robberies has to make a person wonder what’s behind all of these incidents. One element at play here is that poker pros often carry a lot of money around with them, which can attract the attention of thieves. Another aspect behind poker robberies is that players like to drink and party, which leads them to meeting some unsavory characters. And most robbers target people or businesses that they know. Finally, grinders do a lot of traveling, which puts them in unfamiliar cities and locations, thus increasing the chance of being robbed.

We could go on with the list of poker robberies and reasons behind them, but the bottom line is that players need to be careful with whom they associate, and also when they flash their money.