Canada sweeps at WSOP in Vegas

Canadian Jason Duval just scored 7 bracelets out of 28 Las Vegas events, setting the record for the most bracelets won by a non-US country at the World Series of Poker. Since Duval's big success, Justin Oliver and Daniel Idema added an additional two titles to Canada's grand total, for an incredible overall count of 9 out of 39 tournaments.

37 year-old Toronto player, Oliver, beat 566 players at WSOP $2,500 No Limit Hold'em - 4 Handed (Event #38). His prize was $309,071. Then, 28 year-old Vancouver native, Idema, beat 558 players at WSOP $1,500 Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo (Event #39), winning $184,590. His career earnings (for his poker career, that is; he was a pro hockey player before that) now total $1,699,642.

Other Canadian winners at WSOP 2013 include Charles Sylvestre, Benny Chen, Michael Malm, Levi Berger, Mark Radoja, and Calen McNeil.

To put Canada's sweep in perspective, there are a total of 62 WSOP gold bracelet events - that makes 9 out of the first 39 a pretty big deal!

The impressive skill may be due to the legal status of online poker in Canada, which greatly improves players' skills in the live arena, and player Jonathan Duhamel's 2010 Main Event win and subsequent TV appearances. He explained the basics to the masses and as WPT Montreal Season XI winner Jonathan Roy explained, since then, more and more people have really begun to understand what poker is all about.

Here are the bracelet tallys so far at WSOP 2013:

United States: 25

Canada: 9

Belgium: 2

Australia: 1

Austria: 1

Bulgaria: 1

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