rss feedPoker Player Bio: David Benyamine
David Benyamine is not the most well known poker player in the world but he may be one of the best. The reason that he is not all that well known is that he rarely plays in tournaments; instead he has built his reputation by playing in high stakes cash games. These games are so big that the poker magazines and websites often report on them which means that serious poker fans know who David Benyamine is.
Growing up in Paris David Benyamin’s first love as a child was tennis, a game that he got good enough at that he was able to turn pro. His career did not last long however as he would suffer a back injury that would force him to retire when he was just twenty. He was also at one point in time the top ranked billiards player in France. He got his start in poker as a child playing mainly for fun but when his tennis career came to an end he decided to start taking the game more seriously.
In the early days of his poker career David Benyamine followed the path that most players do and started to enter a lot of tournaments. He had some notable successes as well, the biggest of these being winning a World Poker Tour event. Like a lot of top players however he soon realized that the real money to be made was in cash games which is what he started to focus on. The result is that he rarely plays in tournaments any more.
Becoming well known as a cash game player is not easy, there are lots of cash games played every day that nobody ever hears about. In the case of David Benyamine however his games are often reported on mainly because of the very high stakes that are involved. One would think that a player as good as Benyamine would have a hard time finding people willing to play him for high stakes but this has not been the case. There are lots of people who have plenty of money who are willing to risk it for the chance to see how they do against one of the best players in the world.
In 2004 David Benyamine discovered that there are downsides to playing in cash games for a living, in this case it is that you have to live in Las Vegas if you want to find people to play with. Benyamine was deported when it was discovered that he did not have the right visa and he was not allowed to come back to the United States. This seriously impacted his earning potential as there are nowhere near as many high stakes games in Europe. Now that he is allowed back in the US however David Benyamine is back playing high stakes poker in Las Vegas.
