Jonathan Duhamel is the new “face” of the World Series of Poker and flavour of the year in international circles. He was the winner of the Main Event in 2010 and for this road to riches has meant dropping out of university. He is by no means the first young successful poker player who has dropped out of school to pursue his dream, he won’t be the last, and he is also not the first player to highlight a connection between poker and finance. Of course, he now has all the money in the world he could want after landing an $8.9 million prize.
This Canadian player dropped out of his degree course in finance at the University of Quebec in Montreal to dedicate more time to poker. At the age of 23 this huge gamble obviously paid off when he landed the most prestigious poker tournament prize and title on the face of the Earth. However, both he and David Einhorn, who is a Hedge Fund Manager and placed 18th in the 2006 WSOP, have more than mere poker in common.
There are a great many probabilities which come into play in poker and knowing finance definitely helps because of the mathematical aspects; as well as the psychological part of the game, having a handle on numbers and percentages helps in many ways. Duhamel says calculations go through his mind all the while he plays and choosing finance as a course of study was a natural choice as he was always excellent in maths. At one point in time he was considering becoming a trader but it is still early days yet and he may still pursue his degree.
He says it was hard to tell his father and mother that he was dropping out of school to travel and play poker, so he told them he was taking a year off. Today they support his decision as do his friends. In fact one of his friends pulled off a fantastic trade. He contributed $100 to Duhamel’s $10 000 buy-in for the WSOP Main Event and was recently paid back a cut of the winnings – $90 000!!! Now that is what I call making a wise investment!
Like many young and dynamic poker players, Duhamel’s skills at this game were learned online, and it took him only five years to reach the pinnacle of success. However poker is the kind of game it takes your whole life to learn, so if he is in it for the duration he has still got a whole lot of learning to do.
By the way Chris Moneymaker also has a Masters Degree in accounting! Aaron Brown is a former professional poker player; now a risk manager at AQR Capital Management. Steven Begleiter works at a private equity firm, made the 2009 WSOP final table main event. Chris “Jesus” Ferguson won the WSOP main event in 2000 is a computer scientist and still day trades. Billionaire banker Andrew Beal played with some of the best poker pros in the highest stakes games ever and was a poker legend.