When one thinks of Canadian excellence the tendency might be to focus on sports like ice hockey or perhaps their fine maple syrups, however it might also surprise you to know that they have their fair share of great gamblers too, online poker Canada is big, specifically speaking, there are a number of Canadian poker players who aren’t just great but are actually world class participants in all the major tournaments and remain beloved by the public.
Consider the following…
Isabelle Mercier
One of the hottest female poker players to have emerged out the great white north, Isabelle Mercier hails from Quebec and also (strangely enough) also holds a law degree. She has netted numerous top prizes since taking second place in the No Limit hold ’em tournament at the Masters Classic of Poker 2002 in Amsterdam. Since that time she’s won all sorts of accolades, of course, most notably winning the WPT ladies night tournament in 2004.
Jonathon Duhamel
Another Quebec native, Jonathon Duhamel is perhaps best known as being the first Canadian to capture a main event bracelet (2010), but it should be noted that he’s taken home millions in winnings since that time. In fact, it has been calculated that (as of 2014) Duhamel’s total tournament take exceeds $12 million. While he rests at around #13 in terms of global rank (currently), he actually climbed as high as #5 at one point (which was in 2012).
Tuan Lam
Even though Tuan Lam is known to be the second highest grossing poker player emerging out of Canada, he remains something of an enigma. His main claim to fame is taking second at the 2007 WSOP main event. Directly afterwards Lam seems to have early disappeared from the public spotlight altogether, however is still playing apparently, as evidenced by THIS interview. By and large he seems to be a very understated player who doesn’t particularly like making a splash or being aggressively showy, which seems to run against the grain when compared with all the ultra-flashy players out there.
Daniel Negreanu
No list of Canadian poker players would be complete without Daniel Negreanu, of course. This iconic individual has won no less than 6 WSOP championships and 2 World Poker Tournament tiles. In fact, Negreanu isn’t just an outstanding Canadian player, he’s also considered to be one of the absolute best that’s ever played the game. His winnings are said to easily exceed $29,000,000 and he’s apparently still at it. Daniel has also been named WSOP player of the year two times, once in 2004 and yet again in 2013; naturally, he is also currently the only other player to gain this distinction. Then of course there’s the fact that he is considered to be the biggest live tournament winner of al time, which pretty much assures a certain level of immortality within the poker world. Negreanu is also quite the philanthropist and actually started the Big Swing charity golf event. Likewise, he’s often a featured guest on various other aid / charity events, like “Ante up for Africa” and others.