The November Nine: Craig Marquis

News / Chris Edwards / 29 July 2008 / Leave a comment

Craig Marquis is a 23 year old poker player from Arlington, Texas. He is best known as an online player and goes by the screen name 'craigmarq'. Although he has only been playing for roughly 18 months he has moved up the limits from $2/$4 to $200/$400 and will have 10,210,000 at the final table in November.

He is a college student and was room mates with David 'raptor' Benefield during the world series and is also good friends with Tom 'durrr' Dwan, so its not surprising how good he has become with the company he keeps.

Although primarily an online player, this year was his second WSOP. In 2007 he cashed in two events, the $5,000 PLHE where he came 34th for $14,030 and the $1,000 NLHE where he came 30th for $16,133. In 2008 he had one lone cash in the $1,500 NLHE Shootout for $5,596. He was quite disappointed as he played in a total of 19 events with the single cash while his housemates were on a tear. He was living with Joe Commisso who won event 45 (NLHE 6Max) and David Benefield also had some impressive cashes. Marquis says that he told everyone he was saving his luck and good play for the main event.

Marquis was involved in a lot of big hands on the final day. He got extremely lucky in one hand where he had his entire tournament life on the line. Peter Eastgate raised to 750k and Dean Hamrick raised to 2.1m. Action was folded to Marquis who after going into the tank decided to moved all in for his final 6m. Eastgate folded and Hamrick made the quick call. Marquis was in bad shape with his As Qh against Hamrick's Qd Qc. The flop of Jh 7s 3h was not help either, but the 4h on the turn gave Marquis a small life line, which was fulfilled when the 5h hit the river.

Hamrick was to bubble the final 9 and it was Marquis who finished him off. Hamrick moved all in for 3.4m and Marquis moved all in as well, isolating Hamrick. Marquis showed Qc Qh and was ahead of Hamrick's Ac Js. The flop was dealt slowly and the first two cards provided some excitement, Kc 10h 3d. The 10d on the turn took any straight possibilities away from Hamrick and the Ks on the river confirmed him as the first November 9 bubble.

Marquis said that he had loads of support coming towards the end of the final day. His phone was ringing non stop and his facebook profile was cluttered with good luck messages. He returns in November and will try and become the online player with the highest profile tournament victory.

**Update** Craig Marquis eliminated in 9th place