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NOVEMBER NINER PROFILE: GRIFFIN BENGER
Griffin Benger
Twitter: @GriffinBenger
Age: 31
Hometown: Toronto, Ontario
Occupation: Professional Poker Player
WSOP Earnings: $231,201
WSOP Cashes: 13
WSOP Final Tables: 0
Best Previous Main Event Finish: 90th in 2014
*All stats are prior to the 2016 Main Event
Griffin Benger is a 31-year-old professional poker from Toronto, Canada. A Main Event victory for Benger would add another significant achievement to his poker and eSports career. In 2012 Benger was the top ranked online poker player in the world. On the eSports side of things Benger won the 2004 World Championship of Counter-Strike.
Benger has locked up a minimum payday of $1 million by making the November Nine. However, this is not the first seven figure score of Benger’s poker career. In 2014 Benger won Season 1 of Shark Cage in London for $1 million, which accounts for nearly half of Benger’s $2,395,406 in career live poker tournament earnings, excluding this year’s Main Event. Benger has cashed in the WSOP Main Event twice previously to this year. In 2014 he finished 90th for $72,369, which was his largest WSOP cash up until this year’s Main Event. In 2012 he finished 304th for $38,453.
Road to the Final Table:
Benger kept an above average stack for most of the tournament. He bagged above average stacks on Days 2-5, including bagging the most of any November Niner on Day 4 when he bagged 2,409,000, just shy of double the average stack and good for 24th place out of the 251 remaining players. On Day 5 Benger bagged just shy of 10 million chips putting him in fourth position with 80 players remaining.
Day 6 did not go as well for Benger and he ended up bagging less than he started the day with. Midway through the day Benger ran into Max Silver’s pocket aces to lose about a third of his stack. Shortly after, Benger found a bit of luck to keep his stack healthy when he cracked Ron Giles Ace-King to eliminate him. At the end of Day 6 Benger bagged 20th out of the 27 remaining players.
The live updates show that Benger was active on Day 7 and that he was involved in many pots throughout the day. The most notable of those pots was when he eliminated Will Kassouf in 17th place. Benger was on the right side of an aces vs. kings all-in preflop cooler. The hand will be one of the most memorable WSOP Main Event hands for years to come. Benger went on to finish the day seventh in chips with 26,175,000.
Final Table Position:
Benger has 26,175,000 chips (52 bbs). On his right will be Jerry Wong, who sits in 8th position with 10,175,000 chips (22 bbs). To Benger’s left will be Vojtech Ruzicka, who has a similar sized stack to Benger with 27,300,000 chips (54 bbs).
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