In his recently published “Cowboys Full”, James McManus argues that poker is a game ideally suited to the American Character. Americans are all descended from gamblers, i.e. those who fled the British monarchy for a chance at a better life in an unknown and untamed land. They gambled on prosperity, and for the vast majority of them, they won. What better nation to embrace poker than a nation whose lineage is based on gambling?

Canada is a much different story. Our national character has been described as “nice”, “polite”, “peaceful”, “hospitable”, “modest”, and “conservative”. Hardly the character traits one would also use to describe the modern poker player. “Aggressive” and “cutthroat” are more common descriptors of those who’ve achieved success in the post-Moneymaker poker boom.

So why the heck did a bunch of Canadians just return home from the World Series of Poker hauling heaps of hardware and bags full of cash? That is a question better left to an expert sociologist (or possibly Daniel Negreanu). In the meantime, let’s take some time to highlight their monster achievements.

The 2010 World Series is currently on hiatus, having just finalized the final table of its Main Event. Among the surviving 9 players – the so-called “November Nine”, who will resume their battle for the title in 4 months – are 2 Canadians. In fifth place is Matthew Jarvis. The business student from Surrey, BC broke the final table bubble when his pocket queens held against Brandon Steven’s Ace-King. Jarvis is in excellent chip position, but his stack is dwarfed by chipleader Jonathan Duhamel. The 23-year old from Boucherville, Quebec built up an enormous stack as the rest of the players waited for somebody else to finish tenth, eventually winding up with 65.975 million chips, almost 20 million more than his nearest rival. No Canadian has ever won the WSOP Main Event, but with a combined 37.6% of the chips left between them, the combination of Jarvis and Duhamel look to be our best chance ever at breaking that streak, and taking home the $9 million first prize.

But Canada’s success at the Series was not reserved for the Main Event. Of the 56 tournaments leading up to the Grand Finale, Canadians won 5 of them!

We got out of the gates quickly, as Aadam Daya, 31-year old business analyst from Mississauga, Ontario, won event #3, a $1000 no limit hold ‘em tournament. He was followed by Pascal LeFrancois in event #8.  LeFrancois’ name will forever be cemented in poker history for having posed for his winner’s picture – of the $1500 no limit hold ‘em event – with his shirt off!  He later poured another layer of cement on that legacy by finishing 11th in the Main Event, nearly making it a troika of Hosers waiting to compete in November.

We had to wait a couple of weeks for our next bracelet, however. Miguel Proulx of Quebec would do the honours by winning event #28, a $2500 pot limit omaha tournament. He’d later prove his omaha mastery by finishing second to Daniel Alaei in the $10,000 version of the same tournament.

The last two Canadian bracelet winners brought with them some serious pedigrees to their respective winner’s circles. Scott Montgomery finished fifth in the 2008 Main Event (thus making him an original November Niner). The $3 million he won that year pales in prestige to the bracelet he took down this year, in event #36. And in event #44, a gaggle of pros turned out to watch Gavin Smith take down his first bracelet. On the short list of “best players never to have won a bracelet” before his win, Gavin – a former WPT Player of the Year – firmed up his spot as the second most successful Canadian poker player of all-time, behind Daniel Negreanu.

If you think that 5 bracelets out of 56 events — for a nation of only 33 million people! — is impressive, just remember this: it could have been a lot more! Alongside the 5 wins were 7 runner-up finishes. Besides the aforementioned Mr. Proulx, Vincent Jacques, JD McNamara, Daniel Idema (brother of 2+2 poker podcast co-host Adam Schwartz, who talks about railing his brother here) , Matt Marafioti, Owen Crowe, and Shawn Buchanan – who nearly won the WPT Championship except for his queens losing to David Williams’ pocket nines – all wore the bridesmaid’s dress in huge-field tournaments. Buchanan’s runner-up finish came in one of the Series’ flagship events, the newly created $25,000 six-handed tournament. He also managed to pace the field by cashing in 8 different tournaments over the course of the entire Series.

Besides all these high-profile successes by well-known and established pros, two members of the Red Hot Poker Tour, Canada’s largest amateur poker league, had outstanding results.

Holly Hodge, a Red Hot member from Windsor, finished 6th in event #22, the $1000 Ladies event, earning just a shade under $30,000.  She thus became the first known Red Hot member to make a final table at the World Series, after the in-the-money successes by Gary Biggar and John Lawson at previous Series.

Improving on Holly’s performance, money-wise, was Evan Lamprea, another member from Windsor (what do they have in the water down there?). Evan went very deep in the Main Event, finishing 46th for a payday of almost $170,000. Lamprea got a lot of notoriety for having the chiplead at the end of Day 5, his stack of 3.546 million easily leading the remaining field of 205 players.

The World Series is over, but that does not mean that Canadians are done putting their undersized boots to the poker world. Torontonian Sorel Mizzi currently sits 1st and 2nd respectively on the Bluff and CardPlayer magazine Player of the Year lists. The ultimate grinder, both live and online, look for Mizzi to play everything in sight, as he’s stated it’s his goal to win both awards.

And while you’re at it, look for the rest of the contingent of professional Canadian poker players to maintain their enormous success ratio for the rest of 2010, as they battle the more gamble-ready Americans at their own game. If you find yourself sitting across the green felt from a Canadian, don’t be surprised if he or she “politely” takes your chips, “peacefully” stacks them up in “conservative” towers, and then “modestly” claims they’re just happy to be playing. More than likely you’ve just been bluffed. Maybe there’s more to our national character than meets the eye?

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