Hailing from Sydney, Australia with 54 cash game winnings and total winnings in the range of $ 700,000 with 7 first place finishes to his credits and one coveted WSOP bracelet adorning his wrist, this Pro rank 1 position holder at 1682 maintains a Pro rank 2 position of 62. He’s happily married and proud daddy to 3 daughters with a long poker-playing streak first exhibited in 1969.
His favorite style of poker is Omaha and favorite place in the world to play it is Las Vegas; his poker inspiration comes from Dan Harrington – so yes that was our short intro to Gary Benson!
Gary Benson is featured in the Australian Poker Hall of Fame and rightly so because he is the first Aussie to have won a gold at the WSOP (1996). He was then playing in the Limit 7 Card Stud poker and representing his country at the lucrative pro poker event.
He is known as the man in the black jacket who has been noticed ever since his first appearance in the Tasmania Casino tournament held in 1981 where he performed very well and has continued to win accolades for his consistency at the tables ever since.
He is also a very well known sports bettor in addition to being a professional poker player on Poker Stars. His interest in card games, especially poker was fueled at a very young age with his grandmother having been young Gary’s inspiration to take to playing poker while still in school, in the 1970’s.
It was in 1987 when Gary attended the Australian Poker Championship held in Adelaide that he got a first hand taste of playing in professionally organized events and loved the experience. He then made it a point to participate in all poker events arranged in New Zealand and Australia thereafter and by 2007, his collective wins from such events had exceeded $540,000.
It was his ability to read players as well as a sharp spirit of competitiveness that led Gary to build his prowess so he could out-maneuver more experienced and tough Titan Poker opponents in other mind games, like Chess, which he started playing at the age of 13. After joining the CCLA (Correspondence Chess League of Australia), Gary went on to win the championship arranged by the organization and was the recipient of the coveted International Master title for Correspondence Chess. That was in 2004. The next year, he focused on earning the Senior International Master title – and won that too!
How’s that for a winning streak?
The same kind of focused attention enabled Gary to secure poker wins for Omaha and Seven Card Stud where he plays high limit and big cash games mainly at his favorite poker spots – the Crown Casino, Canberra Casino and Christchurch Casino.
His first Las Vegas trip was in 1990 though the WSOP покер bracelet came to him in 1996, after 15 hours of battle strategy like play at the poker tables where Gary beat 247 players to clinch the title and rake in $148,200 for spectacular victory.
He also has three in-the-money finishes to his name, all earned during the 2006 WSOP.