Benjamin (Ben) Roberts (born Mehdi Javdani ( fa, مهدی جاودانی) on 3 November 1956 in

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

) is a British professional

poker Poker is a family of comparing card games in which players wager over which hand is best according to that specific game's rules. It is played worldwide, however in some places the rules may vary. While the earliest known form of the game wa ...

player based in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

Poker career

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently s ...

he almost made the final table of the

World Series of Poker The World Series of Poker (WSOP) is a series of poker tournaments held annually in Paradise, Nevada and, since 2004, sponsored by Caesars Entertainment. It dates its origins to 1970, when Benny Binion invited seven of the best-known poker pl ...

Main Event. He finished sixth and received $150,000, but as he and Jan Lundberg were both eliminated in the same hand, the final table that year consisted of just 5 players. In his final hand, his pocket Aces lost to Scotty Nguyen's Ace-Queen of Diamonds when Nguyen hit a flush. In 2002 he made an appearance on

Late Night Poker ''Late Night Poker'' is a British television series that helped popularize poker in the 2000s. It used "under the table" cameras that enabled the viewer to see each player's cards. The show originally ran for six series between 1999 and 2002 ...

. He finished 3rd in his heat, ahead of such players as

Ross Boatman Ross Maxim Boatman (born 3 March 1964) is an English actor, professional poker player and a member of the poker-playing group the Hendon Mob. He is known for the role of Firefighter Kevin Medhurst in the ITV drama series '' London's Burning'' ...

Daniel Negreanu Daniel Negreanu (; born July 26, 1974) is a Canadian professional poker player who has won six World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelets and two World Poker Tour (WPT) championship titles. In 2014, independent poker ranking service Global Poker I ...

and

Malcolm Harwood Malcolm Harwood (born 1938 in Oxford) is an English professional poker player who learnt how to play whilst doing his National Service. He later appeared in Channel 4's Late Night Poker, where he reached the Grand Final in seasons 1, 2, and 5. He ...

. In 2004 he made his first final table of the

World Poker Tour The World Poker Tour (WPT) is an internationally televised gaming and entertainment brand. Since 2002, the World Poker Tour has operated a series of international poker tournaments and associated television series broadcasting playdown and the f ...

(WPT), where he finished 5th in the third season Grand Prix de Paris event won by Surinder Sunar. Roberts won €101,980 at the event. In 2005 he made the final table of the VC Cup and competed in the World Speed Poker Open. In the same year he also became the 5th entrant in the European Poker Players Hall of Fame. His total live tournament winnings exceed $1.2 million.

Other activities

Roberts was a County

Table Tennis Table tennis, also known as ping-pong and whiff-whaff, is a sport in which two or four players hit a lightweight ball, also known as the ping-pong ball, back and forth across a table using small solid rackets. It takes place on a hard table div ...

Champion in 1978 and the English

Snooker Snooker (pronounced , ) is a cue sport played on a rectangular table covered with a green cloth called baize, with six pockets, one at each corner and one in the middle of each long side. First played by British Army officers stationed in ...

Champion in 1979. Roberts legally changed his name when he got married in the late 1970s. He went on to have 3 children. Jamie Roberts, Rebecca Roberts and Sebastian Roberts. He is also fond of

jazz music Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a maj ...

External links

World Poker Tour Profile

Hendon Mob tournament results
{{DEFAULTSORT:Roberts, Ben 1956 births British people of Iranian descent Poker players from London Iranian poker players Living people