David Benyamine

David Benyamine, a French professional poker player, who plays under the nicknames of Degenyamine and Napolean, has to his credit a number of World Series of Poker (WSOP) and World Poker Tour (WPT) achievements. Benyamine has won 1 WSOP bracelet and made 10 WSOP cashes. He also has a WPT title and has appeared at the WPT final tables four times, making a total of 11 cashes. Although he has not won any European Poker Tour (EPT) titles, he has made to the EPT final tables once and has made 2 EPT cashes.

Beginnings

Benyamine began his professional life playing tennis in southern France, but a back injury changed his life forever. Since he was unable to play tennis anymore, a friend took him to a poker club in order to cheer him up. Benyamine became fond of the game and soon realized that he had a flair for understanding, playing, and winning card games.
He started by playing low-stakes cash poker games and soon evolved as one of the top professional poker players in Europe. Today, he regularly plays at the Paris-based Aviation Club, which offers excellent poker gaming services to the world’s best poker players.

Benyamine’s Poker Achievements

In addition to his WPT achievements, Benyamine has also won the WPT Battle of Champions II, an on-invitation-only event, in which he defeated top professional poker players such as Phil Laak, Antonio Esfandiari, and Hoyt Corkins.

Although Benyamine began his poker career playing poker cash games, his friends, fans, and well wishers urged him to try his luck at tournaments. Accordingly, he played his first WSOP event in 2008, reaching the final tables thrice and winning one bracelet.

Benyamine enjoys playing high stakes poker online. Before Full Tilt Poker’s domain name was confiscated by the US Department of Justice, he was on Team Full Tilt and played in his own name there. Although Beyamine plays a number of poker variants, he is especially fond of PL Omaha and specializes in this variant.

By 2010, Benyamine had won over $4,500,000 playing live poker tournaments.

Benyamine’s Gaming Style

David Benyamine plays poker with intensity, while maintaining a cool exterior, which makes him quite a formidable force to reckon with at the poker gaming tables. Although Benyamine is an aggressive player, he values courtesy and etiquette at the gaming tables, and is also reported to have said that he likes to see poker players behave politely so that playing poker becomes a pleasure. Benyamine also feels that players who use foul language and behave badly should be fined heavily to maintain a peaceful and fun gaming atmosphere at the table.

As a poker player of great repute and also as a person, Benyamine is quiet, humble, and unassuming. He is fond of Omaha and Texas Hold’em and attributes his success to his desire to improve his game as much as he could. He voices his opinion that a good poker player understands himself well, adding that he is not quite sure that he understands himself well now.