John Duthie (poker player)

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John Duthie (poker player) : biography

13 May 1958 –

John Duthie (born 13 May 1958 in Leeds, Yorkshire) is a London-based English television director and creator of the European Poker Tour.

Film and television

As an assistant director he worked alongside directors such as Charles Sturridge, Lewis Gilbert and Bille August on projects such as Longitude, Haunted and The House of the Spirits. Having worked as a second unit director on the TV serial Kavanagh QC, he moved on to become a full-time director on television serials including As If, Clocking Off and Silent Witness, which won an RTS award for Best Editing and a BAFTA Award for Best Drama Serial. He created and Executive Produced the European Poker Tour series of TV programmes now in its sixth season and continues to consult on the series.

Notes

Poker

He became a well-known figure on the poker circuit when he won the televised Poker Million 2000 tournament on the Isle of Man, earning £1,000,000 ($1,426,330, at the time of winning) by outlasting a final table that included Tony Bloom and Barny Boatman.

He later made three appearances on the Late Night Poker television series. In one episode he outlasted a field including Surinder Sunar, Julian Gardner and Marcel Lüske to qualify for the series 6 Grand Final.

He also had a second-place finish to Mike Sexton in the 2003 European Heads-Up Championships in Paris, France and also a 2nd place finish in the PokerStars Spring Championship of Online Poker $25,000 heads up tournament and 2nd Place in the WSOP $10,000 heads up tournament, both in 2009.

Duthie is founder and CEO of the European Poker Tour, and used his television background to negotiate production and broadcasting deals with various partners. He is also a commentator for the series.

As of 2009, his total live tournament winnings exceed $2,200,000.

He was a member of the PokerStars sponsored professional players known as "Team PokerStars" until his contract expired in Dec. 2011. He said this on various online poker forums and later Pokerstars confirmed this.

Personal life

Duthie is married and has two sons. He enjoys watching movies (his favourite film is On the Waterfront), and is very fond of the work of Al Alvarez. In 2005 John appeared on the chat show Heads Up with Richard Herring to discuss his life and career. He recently revealed in an online interview that he also rode bulls in Australia for a year and would like to be played by Sean Penn in a movie of his life.