PROFILE
Name: Mark Newhouse
Age: 28
Birthplace: Chapel Hill, NC
Current Hometown: Las Vegas, NV
Arguably the most successful tournament poker player of the 2013 World Series of Poker “November Nine” combatants, Mark Newhouse will come to the final table as the second shortest stack. With his 7.35 million in chips in the Three Seat, Newhouse is surrounded by big stacks everywhere he looks; to his left, he looks as Ryan Riess (25.875 million) and Amir Lehavot (29.7 million) and, to his right, he has Sylvain Loosli (19.6 million) and Jay Farber (25.975 million), although he has a bit of a respite with Michiel Brummelhuis (11.275 million) on his immediate right. This isn’t Newhouse’s first rodeo, however.
A part of the mid-2000s “poker boom,” Newhouse rocketed into the tournament poker world’s consciousness with his victory at the 2006 World Poker Tour Borgata Poker Open, earning $1.5 million for that win. Admitting to poor bankroll management, Newhouse would drop out of the tournament poker scene in 2011 after racking up 15 more cashes and $2 million in career earnings. Newhouse has made a huge comeback here at the 2013 WSOP and, with a bit of fortune on his side, may be able to move up the leaderboard further as the Championship Event final table plays out.
HOW HE GOT HERE
Day 1(C): 77,075
Day 2(C): 110,500
Day 3: 441,500
Day 4: 1,611,000
Day 5: 2,035,000
Day 6: 5,785,000
KEY HAND
Peaking at 15th place on Day 6, Newhouse has been slowly grinding his way up to the determination of the “November Nine.” The Day 7 play was tough on Newhouse, however, as he saw his chip stack – and any dreams of the World Championship – potentially slipping away slowly through his fingers.
Newhouse wouldn’t have made the WSOP Championship Event final table were it not for an extremely loose play from Sylvain Loosli that kept him alive. After a raise from Loosli on the button, Newhouse looked down out of the big blind to find only an A-6 (not a great hand in its own right). Newhouse had been studying Loosli’s actions on the felt all evening, however, and decided to make his stand for his last 2.5 million chips. Loosli called, turning up an abysmal Q-4 for the fight and, after hitting an Ace on the flop and fading Loosli’s flopped four, saw his stack move up to 5 million. He would nurse that stack through the remainder of ten-handed play to make it to the “November Nine,” but don’t expect those kinds of gifts when the World Championship is determined.
