The French Connection

In just over a year, David Benyamine has entered the lexicon of all of poker's highest-stakes players. And it is likely that, in return, Benyamine has entered a fair number of their wallets and extracted some serious cash.

The man who sailed into Vegas with gamble in his blood, a desire to play big, and a game that balances finesse and fierce aggression perhaps better than anyone has quickly become one of the most successful high-limit players in the world.

You might know him from High Stakes Poker or Poker Superstars, but for the upper crust of the poker economy, he is known as the man who has won millions in the largest cash games in the world.

Pick Your Poison
Benyamine seemed destined for a fast life. For the 34-year-old French native, at first it seemed the limelight would come as a professional athlete. At a young age, he started playing tennis and became a top player. However, arthritis, which he says "is in my genes," killed his chances of continuing. By the time he was 20, the pain was too great and he couldn't maintain the rigorous schedule that required him to play and work out for eight hours a day.

Knowing that the life of a nine-to-fiver wasn't for him, Benyamine sought out something else. "Even when I was young, I could never see myself sitting in an office," he said. He started playing pool and soon became one of the top 10 players in France, excelling at three-cushion and other forms of carom billiards.

For a man who started hanging out in casinos as soon as he turned 18, it seemed natural that, eventually, Benyamine's crafty intelligence, competitive fire, and daring gamble would find a home at the poker table. "I was crazy about all those lights and all those jackpots," he stated. "I would gamble on just about anything: slot machines, rummy, backgammon, draw poker. I enjoyed it all. I played lots of rummy and became a very good player while working in Paris."

Poker Bug
Benyamine's interest in poker was stoked after Patrick Bruel, a well-known French actor, won a World Series of Poker bracelet in 1998 in the $5,000 limit hold'em event. Benyamine began playing low-stakes pot-limit games, in which he found himself winning consistently. After a year, he had built up his bankroll to about $80,000. Then, he moved on to the Aviation Club. "This was my first encounter with pros, and it was a totally different experience," he recalled. "Playing with better players, I saw how fast I could improve my game." Soon, cash-game and tournament winnings ran his bankroll up to more than $200,000. He also was a winning rummy and backgammon player, and these games put additional funds into his bankroll.

Quickly, he decided it was time to step up to the next level. "I always wanted to play the biggest games against the best players, to learn as fast as possible," he said. Letting his bankroll ride in the big pot-limit Omaha game frequented by loose players, including famous high-stakes player George "the Greek" Paravoliasakis, Benyamine soon lost and had to rebuild his roll from scratch.

Luckily for him, an opportunity arose to get back into the upper echelon of action, with much risk. Mike Svobodny, a top backgammon player, observed Benyamine's play at the Aviation Club. "I didn't know him, but he saw that I was talented and decided that I deserved a chance in Las Vegas," Benyamine explained. "He offered me a freeroll and told me that I would be playing for 20 percent of myself. This was at a time when I was low on money, so I accepted."

Once Benyamine touched down in Vegas, things didn't go exactly as planned. At first, he was expecting to be backed in both World Series tournaments and the juicy side games. This didn't happen, and his backing arrangement, according to Benyamine, "consisted of six or seven events in the World Series, in which I didn't do anything good."

But, with the $4,000 in cash that he brought on his person, he proved that anything is possible in America, especially when poker is added to the equation. During the month and a half he called Sin City his home, he went on a tear at the tables, and soon his $4,000 had multiplied to more than $300,000.

He found a few partners, since his bankroll was small. He played in and crushed smaller buy-in ($400-$500) pot-limit games. He had never played limit poker before coming to America, but he dove in anyway. He commented, "I won, and it seemed like I never stopped winning."

At one point, Benyamine actually ran his $4,000 up to more than $400,000. But, stepping up too high too quickly beat him up a bit. "I lost $110,000 playing very high deuce-to-seven, a game I had never played, with Freddy Deeb and all the best," he recalled.

However, this same "balls-to-the-wall" characteristic of playing hard and fast and aiming right for the top is what Benyamine credits for his ultimate success. "What made me good fast was that I played with the best as soon as I could," he explained. "I played with Johnny Chan on my first trip to Las Vegas. Here I am, a beginning limit player, and I'm playing $400-$800 with him. I got monster experience for a few months by sitting down with these players."

Roller Coaster
While he didn't go back to France a poker hero with a wrist adorned in WSOP gold, he did head back flush with cash and an unflinching confidence that he could play any poker game at the highest level. He soon stepped back up to the biggest games at the Aviation Club. But, again, he soon found himself with a skinny bankroll.

"George the Greek, the same guy who caused me to lose my money earlier, was giving lots of action in pot-limit," Benyamine recalls. "This is the same guy who also played in the big game for a time with Chip (Reese) and Doyle (Brunson). He was good action but not a good player. I couldn't stand just watching this game, so I played. And when I played, I got unlucky, and, ultimately, didn't have the experience of the other players."

Benyamine lost the bulk of his money and it was back to a rebuilding mode. He downgraded his cash game and grinded his way back up. With Svobodny still backing him, he played and found success in a number of tournaments, especially the 2002 Euro Finals of Poker, where he won a $1,000 no-limit hold'em event and finished second in the $2,000 European Omaha Championship. Playing solid poker and tallying regular live and tournament victories, it seemed as if it would be only a short time before Benyamine would break out. In July 2003, for the first time, he did just that.

In season two of the World Poker Tour, he made his name known outside the Aviation Club high-stakes arena after he entered the WPT Grand Prix de Paris via a satellite, found himself the chip leader at a final table that included top European pro Jan Boubli, Erick Lindgren, and his former cash-game nemesis, Paravoliasakis, and won the event and the $410,000 first prize. He himself eliminated all five of his opponents on the way to victory.

Despite his success, don't let the WPT champion title fool you into thinking Benyamine might consider himself a tournament player. "I much prefer cash games, because I think tournaments can be boring," he says. "There is far less action in tournaments. Sometimes you just wait for hours. It does teach you patience, though, that is for sure."

Besides the big tournament win, Benyamine said he won nearly as much in the cash games that went off in conjunction with the event. Combined, these winnings swelled his bankroll to its highest ever. Soon thereafter, it was back to America, for the WPT Championship and another shot at running his bankroll through the roof.

Land of Confusion
On March 20, 2004, the PartyPoker Million III cruise terminated its week of high-seas gambling, bad Hawaiian shirts, and 24-hour buffet in the port of San Diego.

At 5 a.m., passenger David Benyamine woke up to a surprise in his cabin; FBI agents demanded that he come with them.

Surprisingly, this wasn't the first time that this type of thing happened. "When I came to the U.S. before, the Immigration Service had given me a hard time because someone with the same name as mine was wanted," he said. It has been reported in the past that Benyamine was accused of being a terrorist. He said that isn't the case. "I never heard that this person was a wanted terrorist. It could have been someone who didn't pay his parking tickets, for all I know."

Whatever the case, Benyamine had $25,000 on him and was itching to get to Bellagio, not deal with bureaucratic red tape and a bunch of overzealous FBI agents. After waiting eight hours in the FBI office, Benyamine said they finally decided that he was not the bad Benyamine. "The three FBI agents wished me good luck in the World Series and I thought I was on my way," he said. "They asked me to sign some papers and said I would be free to go." However, after a few more hours, he hadn't moved. It turned out that, a supervisor concluded he was in America playing poker as a professional rather than as an amateur. "They said I needed a professional visa rather than a tourist visa. I never heard of such a thing, since everyone I knew came to play poker in America with a tourist visa. They said, 'I'm sorry, but we have to deport you to France.'"

It was Saturday night, and he was told he would be deported on Monday morning. He was sent to a detention facility. There was no bed, it was tough, they counted his money in front of the other prisoners, and he wasn't able to make a phone call.

When Monday morning came, he was ready to head to the airport. Instead, he was driven to a state jail in the middle of the California desert. Once he got to the jail, nobody would tell him what was going on. He was forced to stay there five days until they finally sent him home.

Once he finally landed back in France, it took him more than a year to get a visa. He secured a three-year professional visa, which allowed him to go back to the U.S.

Hungry
For the game's biggest high-stakes players, it's a shame that Benyamine was even allowed back on U.S. soil. Since his return, he has gone on perhaps one of the most impressive runs the world of poker has ever seen. He has extracted millions of dollars from the highest-stakes cash games in the world, beating up on a cadre of top players who have become living legends playing as high as $4,000-$8,000 mixed games in the glass-encased confines of Bellagio's Bobby's Room.

Benyamine said that when he finally got back to America, he was hungry. "I wanted to play, and very quickly, I played very big," he exclaimed. He began working his way up the stepladder into a seat in the biggest game in the world. He started playing $400-$800, dove into $600-$1,200, crushed $800-$1,600, and ran well at $1,000-$2,000. "Since I got here, I've never looked back, and I've won a lot of money. My friend and manager Jason Lester helped me out and taught me a lot."

Benyamine first sat in the big game during the 2005 World Series of Poker, and an incredible hot streak soon solidified
his reputation as a big winner. "I probably shouldn't give exact numbers, but you can accurately say that I have won millions," he said. While David has won a ton of money, he has approached the game wisely and hedged his bets. He doesn't play for a full percentage of himself, in order to spread the risk of such a huge game.

In the big game, the swings can be wild. He has won or lost as much as $1.5 million in a session. "Along the way, I also lost some away from poker," he recalled. "I lost $2 million in craps, which was stupid. That is part of the gambling world; you do lots of stupid things."

To excel at this level, against all top players, Benyamine said you have to play extremely well at all times, you have to get lucky, and you have to behave. "Sometimes you will not be able to win for days and days, because the players are so good and because your luck is not on top," he explained. "You have to accept this and realize that there will be another time. It is the same in every game, but it is very frustrating when it is for very big money." Benyamine said Chip Reese exemplifies high-stakes success and the ability to "behave" better than anyone. "He doesn't steam, he does the right thing nearly all the time, and he loves poker. If he thinks he has to quit a session for any reason, he does, and he finds the best reasons to do so."

While the big game is in somewhat of a transition, Benyamine still participates whenever it heats up. When we spoke, nearly two months had elapsed since he had squared off live against the likes of Phil Ivey, Barry Greenstein, Johnny Chan, Doyle Brunson, Gus Hansen, Eli Elezra and Chip Reese. With most of the highest-limit players in the world participating in the Professional Poker League (PPL), which is gearing up to kick off in 2007, and the PPL being filmed at The Venetian, Bellagio is no longer the permanent home of the biggest game in town. "It (The Venetian) has a showroom that is very, very nice, and they treat us like kings," Benyamine said. "They are doing a lot to make us feel like stars."

When a large tournament rolls into Las Vegas, you can still bank on Bellagio hosting huge games. After the recent Festa al Lago World Poker Tour event, Benyamine was again seated in Bobby's Room behind a mountain of chips. Word around the poker room was that he had another weekend in which he won more than $1 million. When the live game does hit a lull, he plays huge stakes online. During the hour and a half we spoke, his aggressive heads-up, $1,000-$2,000 multitabling play put nearly $100,000 in his pocket.

The Way the Poker World Turns
So, what skills has Benyamine used to get where he is today? He said the pure poker skill that helps him the most is his ability to read players and situations at the table. But, he said, getting your mind outside the game is most important, in order to retain long-term focus and success.

"There is always a time when you need to reset," he said. "Either you play too much, don't play enough, or play too strongly. There is always some way to improve your approach. After you know how the game is supposed to be played, you need money management, which is probably the most important skill, and time management, and, as much as possible, you need to talk to friends who are outside the game."

But his most important advice is, well, the most important. "Have a good girlfriend like mine and you can make it very far," he laughed.

His girlfriend, Erica "The Poker Princess" Schoenberg, is no slouch herself. An experienced player, she is a source of calm for a man whose life is engrossed with high-stakes action. After they met - fittingly, in front of the Bellagio poker room - he said they "got involved very fast." Erica and David, now both sponsored by MansionPoker, travel to all major tournaments together, and he said he is beginning to enjoy the tournament trail more and more, especially since he has such a great partner.

You can tell right away once you meet Benyamine that he loves poker. A true gambler at heart, he said "It (poker) is a very good way for me to express my gambling rather than casino games, where the edge is so much against me. I'd be happy to play forever." With mega TV exposure, a great sponsorship deal, an attractive, articulate poker partner, and a pile of winnings, all extracted from the best players in the game, keep a lookout for David Benyamine, as many chapters in his enthralling high-stakes life have yet to be written.