Mark Newhouse is an American poker player and World Poker Tour champion who rose to fame when he became the first player to make the World Series of Poker Main Event November Nine twice in 2013 and 2014.

His odds of making back-to-back final tables were 524,558 to 1, but that’s just what Newhouse did. Most everyone agrees Newhouse’s appearance at the final table ranked as the biggest storyline heading into the 2014 November Nine, especially since he sits third in chips and is primed to improve upon his ninth-place finish in 2013. Unfortunately, that didn't happen as a bad run of cards and an ill-timed bluff saw him once again fall in ninth place for $730,725.

Background

Originally from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Newhouse now splits his time between Los Angeles and Las Vegas playing primarily cash games. A former student at Appalachian State, Newhouse is now a professional poker player who has been playing in the WSOP Main Event every year since 2006. While he’s been successful in 2013 and 2014, it wasn’t always that way; in fact, in his first five years all he managed was a 182nd-place finish in 2011 for $47,107.

Newhouse first came to poker prominence when he earned over $1.5 million for winning the World Poker Tour Borgata Poker Open in September 2006, but admitted that he wasn't the smartest person with his money following the big win, as you can see from what he told PokerNews in a Where Are They Now? interview.

"I made a lot of very poor decisions over the next couple of years," Newhouse said. “I have made nearly every mistake you can make in this business and learned from all of them. I am doing my best to do the right things these days and things are going pretty well for me now. The road to rebuilding is a much longer and slower one than the road of destruction, but with a healthy lifestyle, a hard work ethic, a little discipline, and the experience of past mistakes my goals don't seem all that far away.”

Newhouse clearly rebounded in a big way in 2013 and 2014 and now finds himself in the exclusive company of Dan Harrington, Johnny Chan, Doyle Brunson, and Stu Ungar as some of the players who’ve made back-to-back WSOP Main Event final tables.

Other Results

Outside of his WPT title and infamous ninth-place finishes in the WSOP Main Event, Newhouse has had success in other tournaments, including the $25,000 Championship at the 2008 WPT World Championship, where he finished in 19th place for $105,525.

In 2015, right after his back-to-back ninth-place finishes, Newhouse ran deep in the $5,000 Deep Stack Extravaganza and ended up in eighth for $61,373, which may not have been the desired result but had to feel better than ninth.

Newhouse has yet to win a WSOP bracelet or Circuit ring. His closest call came in 2006 when he finished fifth in a $3,000 Limit Hold'em event for $56,470.

Mark Newhouse's Top 5 Live Cashes