PROFILE
Name: Michiel Brummelhuis
Age: 32
Birthplace: Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Current Hometown: Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Although he isn’t a household name to American poker fans, Michiel Brummelhuis may soon become one if he makes a deeper drive to become the first Dutch winner of the World Series of Poker Championship Event. Coming to the “November Nine” final table with 11.275 million in chips (seventh place), Brummelhuis is in a tough spot in the Two Seat this fall. Although he has the short stacked Mark Newhouse (7.35 million) to his immediate left, he’ll have to contend with Jay Farber (25.975 million) and the wild Sylvain Loosli (19.6 million) when he is in the big blind.
After honing his game in the online community under the name ‘Utreg,’ Brummelhuis has cultivated a very nice tournament background that goes back to 2007 at a preliminary event on the European Poker Tour Grand Final calendar. Since then, he has earned 24 tournament cashes worldwide (the biggest a $154,350 score at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure $25,000 High Rollers event in 2010) with eight of those cashes at the WSOP (counting his “November Nine” appearance). He has already more than doubled his career earnings with the ninth-place money from the WSOP Championship Event.
What effect has Brummelhuis’ appearance in the “November Nine” had on the Dutch poker community? Last month, the organizers of one of Europe’s most popular events, the Masters Classic of Poker, delayed the start of their tournament to allow Brummelhuis to take part in the WSOP Championship Event. If he does win the World Championship, the potential explosion of poker in the Netherlands might be measured on the Richter scale.
HOW HE GOT HERE
Day 1(A): 95,225
Day 2(A): 309,500
Day 3: 666,000
Day 4: 327,000
Day 5: 3,485,000
Day 6: 2,245,000
KEY HAND
Brummelhuis has been fighting for his tournament life since Day 4 and started Day 7 of the Championship Event as the next to last player among the 27 survivors. He wasted little time in declaring his intentions on Day 7, pushing his stack into the center against Loosli, Newhouse and Tran on the first hand of the day; after the trio decided to wait for a better spot, Brummelhuis had his confidence boosted.
He continued that aggressive posture through the early hours on Day 7, cracking the ten million chip mark just before the dinner break, but never seemed to get himself into a decision for his chips as the tournament wore into the early morning hours as his chip stack reached its final number. That same determination will be necessary this fall for Brummelhuis if he expects to be the next World Champion of Poker.