2014 WSOP November Nine: Chip Leader Jorryt van Hoof Looks To Clean Up
Born Nov. 15, 1982, Dutchman Jorryt van Hoof hails from the city of Eindhoven where he studied industrial engineering for a year before he decided to become part owner in a game store called GameForce. In 2003, van Hoof discovered poker, and while he prefers pot-limit Omaha cash games, he now finds himself as the chip leader of the 2014 World Series of Poker November Nine.
From a very young age, van Hoof has had entrepreneurial interests. At the age of 12, he played Magic The Gathering, and it was his involvement in that game, along with the fact that many of his customers frequently played the game, that brought him to poker.
Van Hoof's early poker knowledge stems from reading books, after which he further evolved his game by playing and discussing strategies with his friends. The Dutchman notched his first ever live tournament result at the Aviation Club in Paris in the Spring of 2005. Just a few months later, he played his first event at the WSOP and earned his first cash in a $2,000 no-limit hold'em event where he finished 66th for $3,450.
In the fall of 2006, Van Hoof had a huge opportunity to become a poker celebrity in the Netherlands when he led the Master Classics of Poker Main Event in Amsterdam for three straight days; however, he was unable to seal the deal ended up finishing in seventh place for $67,790, far short of the $893,233 first-place prize.
While tournament poker is not Van Hoof's bread and butter, he managed to cash three more times at WSOP times in 2007 and 2008, though after that he took a five year sabbatical from Las Vegas. At the 2013 Utrecht Series of Poker, in the Netherlands van Hoof won the €1,000 event for €32,205, and coincidentally last year's November Niner Michiel Brummelhuis finished seventh in that same event.
Against all odds, a Dutchman has now made the November Nine in back-to-back years, and as fate would have it Brummelhuis and van Hoof go way back as both were a part of the early poker movement in the Netherlands. Despite tournament results dictating a poker player's reputation, van Hoof has been a fan favorite in the Dutch poker community for many years. Back in the day, van Hoof won the first ever $5,000 winner-take-all tournament for $100,000 and made a famous call with eight-high against Dylan Linde in the Sunday Million which had the online railbirds going crazy.
After having lived in Dublin for a year to fully focus on being a consummate professional, van Hoof moved to Malta, a country he lived in for many years. Van Hoof now lives back in the Netherlands where he spends most of his time playing PLO online under the moniker “TheCleaner11.” He also makes training videos for Dutch poker site NederPoker and stresses that players should focus on the mental and physical aspect of being a successful player.
Interestingly enough, van Hoof owes his online screen name to Justin “ZeeJustin” Bonomo. After playing against Bonomo under the screenname “Jorrytvh,” Bonomo was asked if he knew who he had played against and responded, "I don't know, but he cleaned me out.” The rest is history.
Van Hoof’s road to the 2014 WSOP November Nine wasn’t easy. He is one of four players at the final table that began their journey on Day 1b, where he managed to more than double his starting stack to finish with 77,925, putting him 165th out of the advancing 1,428 players. On Day 2, van Hoof actually lost chips and bagged 65,700, which put him 1,218th of 1,864.
Day 3 was much kinder to the Dutchman as he more than tripled that stack to 197,500, but that still put him a mediocre 404th of 746. History then repeated itself as van Hoof followed it up with another loss, bagging just 131,000 on Day 4 to finish as one of the 10 shortest stacks (282nd out of 291). Amazingly, van Hoof turned it around on Day 5 by turning that into 3.9 million, putting him 15th of 79. One day later, he worked it up to 5.395 million to advance to the final three tables 15th in chips.
Then, on Day 7, everything went van Hoof’s way as he navigated his way to the top of the counts. Come November, van Hoof will begin the final table with 38,375,000, which marks the first time since 2008 that the chip leader enters play with less than 20% of the chips in play.
Stay tuned to PokerNews as we follow van Hoof and the other 2014 November Niners leading up to the WSOP Main Event final table in November.
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