His tournament wins have been impressive, but nothing compared to what he has achieved playing in cash games. He is in fact so famous for these games that the press actually reports on the games and the highlights are often reported on by a number of poker-related websites as well. David Benyamine is believed to have been involved in the highest stake game ever played. Though it would seem that his reputation alone would discourage people from playing him in high stakes cash games, in reality the opposite has been true. Many players relish the opportunity to play David Benyamine in a high stakes game. In 2004, his career suffered a setback when he was arrested due to an error caused by the fact that he had a similar name to that of a wanted terrorist and Benyamine spent five days in jail in the United States while the matter was resolved. While authorities were able to establish that he wasn’t the terror suspect, they discovered that he was in the U.S. on the wrong kind of visa, which resulted in deportation and he was banned from entering the country for a year.
