One of The Netherlands' Finest Looks to Clean Up in the WSOP Main Event
Dutchman Jorryt van Hoof hails from the city of Eindhoven where he was born on November 15, 1982. Van Hoof studied Industrial Engineering for a year before he decided to become part-owner in a game store called GameForce.
Van Hoof has had entrepreneurial interests from a very young age, from even before he got into poker. He also played Magic The Gathering from the age of 12, and his involvement in games and business brought him to poker, as many of his customers frequently played the game.
Van Hoof's early poker knowledge stems from reading books, after which he further evolved his game by playing and discussing the game with his friends. The Dutchman played his first poker towards the end of 2003 and notched up his first ever live tournament result at the Aviation Club in Paris in the Spring of 2005. Just a few months later Van Hoof played his first events at the World Series of Poker and notched up 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 lead the Master Classics of Poker Main Event in Amsterdam for three straight days, but he ended up finishing in seventh place for $67,790, while the first-place prize was $893,233.
While tournament poker's not Van Hoof's bread and butter, he managed to cash three more times at WSOP times in 2007 and 2008, after which he did not go to Las Vegas up until this summer. At the 2013 Utrecht Series of Poker in the Netherlands Van Hoof won the €1,000 event for €32,205, and last year's November Niner Michiel Brummelhuis finished seventh in that same event.
Brummelhuis and Van Hoof go way back. The two were a part of the early poker movement in the Netherlands. While tournament results dictate a poker player's reputation, Van Hoof has been one of the fan favorites of 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 8-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 online pot-limit Omaha.
The man who's known online as “TheCleaner11” has been cleaning out some of the biggest cash games around for many years. Van Hoof makes training videos for Dutch poker site NederPoker and also points out 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.”