Canadians David “Dick_Fosbury” Labchuk & Michael “Timex” McDonald Continue 2011 Streaks on PokerStars

At least a couple of Canadians continued on their hot-streaks of 2011, following up recent notable performances this past week on PokerStars; Calgarian David “Dick_Fosbury” Labchuck and Waterloo’s Mike “Timex” McDonald both had some impressive 1st place finishes on Sunday’s virtual felts.

More than 28,000 players participated in the $55 buy-in No Limit Hold’em PokerStars Red Spade Open on November 20th, generating a prize-pool of over $1,415,000 with 1st place originally slated to pay nearly $300,000. When play was reached the final six players however, a deal was struck before finally playing to completion. The eventual winner was “Dick_Fosbury”, who pocketed more than $121,000 and the bragging rights, but it also seemed to us that we had seen this screen name in other recent headlines as well; low and behold, it turns out that he is also one of our PokerStars Canada Cup Finalists playing in the Bahamas this January.

It also turns out that Dr. David Labchuk is a soft tissue rehabilitation specialist by day, so it seems that Team Online player Adrienne “Talonchick” Rowsome will have more in common than a love of cards with at least one player at the upcoming live final table over the 2012 PCA.

Though it appears that David has several player profile pages due to a common misspelling of his last name, sources close to the player can confirm that he also has some pretty solid live game; Labchuk finished 162nd in the 2011 WSOP Main Event for roughly $55,000 after being eliminated by “November Niner” Ben Lamb. David also has around another reported $50,000 in career live cashes, after finishing 2nd in the $1000 NLH 2010 Stampede Classic and 3rd in the 2009 Canadian Open Poker Championships $500 buy-in No Limit Hold’em.

It looks like we will have to get in touch with Labchuk to confirm a few things, one being the witty meaning behind his selection in his online handle; it seems that the real “Dick Fosbury” was an Olympic High Jump Gold medalist who invented the now standard “Fosbury Flop”, after failing to perfect the “straddle” technique common to the sport at the time.

Whether a play on words of common poker terms, or the connection to his professional career treating sports injuries was the inspiration for his choice will definitely be interesting…

Mike “Timex” McDonald shouldn’t need any introduction at this point; with 3 EPT final tables this year, another at the WSOP along with his $20,000 buy-in Epic Poker first place finish worth more than $782,000 just a few months ago and several other major tournament cashes totaling for a grand total of more than $1.1 million over 2011, his $48,500 win in this past Sunday’s $109 “Bigger” on PokerStars seems…ummm…small?

Of course for everybody and almost anybody else, outlasting 2994 entrants for a five-figure pay-day is big news, so let’s stick with that.

“Timex” seemed to be on a mission as the field dwindled down, tweeting “1/40 in the bigger 109. 48k to first. Feeling good about this one.” A little while later, things didn’t look like they would be all smooth sailing for Mike though, after he followed up with, “KK into AA fir triple average with 18 left in bigger 109. He tried his best to let me get away. 11/18.” Things did get back on track for McDonald and he soon reported to fans and followers that he was entering Heads Up play with even stacks. In the end, his KJ was better than AQ to prove once again why he is considered one of the best; that is if almost $4,000,000 in live winnings another million plus more online by age 22 isn’t proof enough.

Oh yeah,he also won his $15,000 PCA package that day and he’s selling action for the $100,000 EPT “High-Roller” at a 1.1 mark-up if anyone is interested…