November Nine Profile – Jonathan Duhamel

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The 7,319 players that started the 2010 World Series of Poker Main Event have been reduced to just nine; as the dust settled from the past week of world-class poker, 22 year-old Canadian Jonathan Duhamel finds himself with a commanding chip lead and the opportunity to follow 2008 winner Peter Eastgate and 2009 winner Joe Cada as the next young Internet phenom to take home poker’s most prestigious title.

Although well-known now, thanks to holding nearly 66 million chips heading into the famed “November Nine” showdown, Duhamel arrived in Las Vegas virtually unnoticed. Opening his first online poker account with $100 just two years ago, Duhamel explained how that step led him to leading the world’s largest poker tournament. “I saw that I was beating my buddies pretty often,” he said. “So I thought I might not be too bad at this.”

“Not too bad” looks like an enormous understatement now. Duhamel never lost his original $100, and he never looked back either; today he plays up to 10 games online at once for much higher stakes, buying in for as much as $2,000 a game.

The game has already taken this Quebec native all over the world, playing in such places as the Caribbean, Monte Carlo, Prague, Monaco and last year in Vegas, where he got knocked out of the Main Event on Day 3. After his early exit last year Duhamel decided to come earlier to this year’s World Series of Poker and play in other events, a decision that appears to be paying dividends.

In the 16^th event he joined before the Main Event, Duhamel discovered his secret formula, finishing 15^th and winning $37,000 that would ensure his trip was successful, regardless of how the Main Event went. “I knew I could beat everyone… that I could play with them,” Duhamel said. “But winning that last tournament gave me some confidence, and it put me back in the mood to play and perform.”

After steadily building his stack over the first seven days of the Main Event, Duhamel burst into the lead on Day 8. Modest about his success, Duhamel said, “The key is making fewer mistakes than everyone else.” That key has allowed him to build a lead of nearly 20 million chips over second place John Dolan and a whopping 42 million more than third place Joseph Cheong.

$100 and two years later, Quebec native Jonathan Duhamel is showing that his decision to become a professional poker player was a wise one. This young gun is looking to become the first Canadian to ever win poker’s biggest event.