David Benyamine Poker Strategy

David Benyamine used to be considered one of the more competent cash game pros in times when we still had High Stakes Poker playing on television, but faded into obscurity in recent years.

It's unclear how his poker career looks now, but even if his focus in life shifted into other things he left behind a pretty impressive poker legacy. Let's take a look at some of the famous hands from the past that David Benyamine took part in.

Solid, Aggressive, Value-Oriented Game

No matter if we talk about the live poker in the 80's, the golden days of Party Poker circa 2006 or super tough and competitive modern games value betting was, and still is, the backbone of every successful player's game.

While non-showdown winnings are much more important now than they ever were and while you have to clash with regs much more often than you used to, if the key to beating a certain table is something else than simply value betting against the recreational players you should most likely change the table.

In this memorable hand from the fifth season of High Stakes Poker, David Benyamine opted to go for somewhat thin value 3bet preflop that was justified by the fact that the addition of Tom "durrrr" Dwan to the high stakes line-up made the game infinitely looser and Tom's range for calling preflop was certainly pretty wide. On a QQ9 lockdown board, it's very, very hard for anyone to have a hand and therefore it makes a ton of sense for David to choose the line that will polarize his range even more than the board already suggests.

He picked a perfect sizing on the flop (just about the amount he'd use when bluff-cbetting) and continued the aggression on subsequent streets which resulted in him winning a nice sized pot. Once again, we often tend to forget that at no point in poker player's development basic fundamentals stop being useful.

When the Opportunity Presents Itself...

This particular hand against Guy Laliberte is the best example of a very smart behavior by a high stakes pro. Many players participating in huge high stakes games were under rolled for that occasion and while it's an opportunity of a lifetime to play against the recreational player like Guy Laliberte, it doesn't mean that Benyamine should be diving head first into a huge pot the loss of which would be much more significant for the pro than the billionaire.

Better Lucky...

This might seem like a run of the mill bad beat for Sammy Farha, but it's important to point out that while the old pros were obviously very good and skilled at the game it's impossible to thrive in the environment of a life cash game  - where you see only 15 or 20 hands per hour if you're lucky - without catching a lucky break once in awhile.

Another spot that might look like a stroke of luck on the surface but was, in fact, a combination of lucky circumstances and a very solid line.

Benyamine was aware of the fact that his value raise (given Doyle's line his range was extremely capped and therefore very unlikely that he can ever beat David) can have the added benefit of folding out small amount of combos of better hands from Daniel's range (which sounds plausible given how strong David's line looks) which makes this play all the more impressive.

... and Good

Sometimes you hit a straight flush and sometimes you make a nice double barrel bluff with 72o in a 3bet pot.

While the choice of the hand might seem a bit controversial since there are many other holdings that are much closer to the top of Benyamine's folding range that he could possibly use for this play, once again it's important to point out the specific context of a live cash game where players don't always get the luxury of waiting and timing becomes much more important than strict hand selection.

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