Benny Spindler

During the recent years, we have seen emergence of very talented and skilful German poker players. Benjamin (Benny) Spindler certainly ranks high amongst those names. Hailing from Darmstadt, Germany, born on January 1st 1986, he was an accomplished StarCraft player before discovering poker in 2006. He has become one of numerous StarCraft players to transition to online poker and he did it in style. Starting to build his bankroll and experience from the micro limits, Spindler very soon became a force to be reckoned with in the poker community. Although most of his results came from cash games, he had some very noticeable finishes in the online tournaments, playing under aliases “toweliestar” and “psychobenny”, the names he retained from his StarCraft playing days. His online winnings are over $800k, and some of the most notable results incoude his victory in the SCOOP $25k Heads Up Championship good for $310k, 3rd place in the FTOPS High Roller worth $211k and final-tabling another SCOOP event in 2013 and taking home another $50k. During his HU SCOOP victory, he bested Andrew “luckyChewy” Lichtenberger, Bertrand ‘Elky’ Grospellier, Alex Keating and finally John Duthie. His first modest live results came in 2007, and did not announce the explosion that would come with 2009. Playing in the PCA Main Event, Benny Spindler finished in 3rd place taking home $1.1 million. In 2011 he finished runner-up in the EPT Madrid High Roller Event, banking tad under $470,000 and in September of the same year the EPT title in London together with nearly $1.2 million prize money. He also made notable finishes in the 2013 WSOP Asia and WSOP Europe, making final tables of the both Main Events, but finishing 6th both times without taking home any bracelets. His live winnings at the time of writing this article are in excess of $4 million. Benjamin Spindler is well known for his crazy and reckless style in poker tournaments, but his results show that he clearly knows what he is doing. Although it may seem that he sometimes takes unnecessary risks, he enjoys putting maximum pressure on his opponents during the game, and he does it very well. Spindler certainly does not like the small-ball approach and his chips are always in action. Although this sometimes results in premature exits, it also often leads to him having a huge stack – a very dangerous weapon in hands of this young pro. Apart from his poker endeavors, he also studies psychology in Mainz, and this is how his alias “psychobenny” came about. You can follow his road to the victory in EPT London through Pokertube videos, as well as his 2013 SCOOP final table.