– General Introduction –
Davidi Kitai is a Belgian professional poker player. He was born on September 28th, 1979.
He was the first player from Belgium to win a WSOP gold bracelet. In 2008, he took down the $2,000 Pot Limit Hold’em event for $244,583. He then went on to capture two more bracelets, one in 2013 and one in 2014.
Kitai has $10.160 million in live tournament earnings. Needless to say, he tops the Belgian all time money list on Hendon. He’s also in the top 150 on the worldwide all time money list.
His astonishing live tournament resume includes, besides the aforementioned 3 WSOP victories, 2 European Poker Tour (EPT) titles, and 1 World Poker Tour (WPT) title as well. That makes him a “triple crown” winner, which means he has won at least one WSOP, WPT and EPT title.
Although he mainly plays live tournaments, Kitai has some impressive online scores as well. He plays under the screen name “legrouzin” on PokerStars, where he amassed hundreds of thousands of dollars in MTT cashes. In November 2020, he took down the $10,300 Super MILLION$ Main Event for $726,839 on Natural8-GGNetwork.
– Key Career Dates –
- 2006: He becomes a professional poker player, playing online MTT’s for a living.
- 2008: He wins his first WSOP gold bracelet after finishing first in the $2,000 Pot Limit Hold’em event for $244,583. He becomes the first Belgian player to win a bracelet.
- 2012: He wins the €5,300 EPT Main Event in Berlin for €712,000. That is the biggest single live tournament cash of his career to date.
- 2020: He wins the $10,300 Super MILLION$ Main Event for $726,839 on Natural8-GGNetwork. That is the biggest single online tournament cash of his career to date.
– Davidi Kitai’s Career –
→ Beginnings ←
Kitai grew up in Brussels, Belgium. As a child, he was dreaming about becoming a professional footballer. However, at age 16, his rapid growth in height proved to be very detrimental to his football technique. He played on an amateur level for low-tier clubs in Belgium until he was 20 – however, he eventually realized that he had no chance of going pro.
He talked about his transition from football to poker in an interview with pokerlistings.com.
At first, he went to college where he studied economics. After graduating at 22, he moved to Los Angeles, CA with his friends for a brief time to improve his English skills – that’s where he discovered poker for himself.
When he got back to Brussels, he first tried running a retail store, both brick-and-mortar and online. However, that venture eventually failed.
In the meantime, Kitai started playing online poker. At first, he played Limit Hold’em cash games. In 2006, he discovered online MTT’s – that is when he started making real money in poker and was able to become a professional.
→ Live Tournaments ←
Kitai’s Hendon page shows $10.158 million in career earnings. He cashed in 154 different events over the course of 15 years. He’s the biggest live tournament winner from Belgium by far, over $5 million ahead of Pierre Neuville in second place. Kitai’s also in the top 150 on Hendon’s famous all time money list.
The first recorded cash on his page is from September 2006, the year he became a professional online MTT player. He came in 21st in the €550 No Limit Hold’em event for €1,420 at EPT Barcelona. By the end of the year, in December 2006, he got his first significant victory on the live felt – he took down a €1,000 NLHE tourney at the Euro Finals of Poker in Paris and won €30,610.
The first time he made a score for over $100K was when he won his first bracelet at the 2008 WSOP. After that, he started delivering big results from major tournament series from around the world – many of them were victories.
In September 2008, he came in 3rd in the €8,250 Main Event at EPT Barcelona for €455,000. In April 2014, he made another 3rd place finish in an EPT event, this time in the €25,000 High Roller in Monte Carlo for €526,400.
Kitai won his first EPT title in April 2012. He took down the €5,300 Main Event at EPT Berlin for €712,000, which is the biggest live tournament score of his career to date. He won another EPT tournament in February 2015, topping the field in the €2,150 NLHE Turbo Cash 8-Handed event for €45,930 in Deauville, France.
Kitai also has a World Poker Tour title. He finished first in the €1,650 No Limit Hold’em Bounty tournament at the WPT European Championship in Berlin – the city where he won his first EPT title as well.
→ World Series of Poker ←
Davidi Katai has won 3 WSOP gold bracelets so far.
In 2008, he took down the $2,000 Pot Limit Hold’em event for $244,583, becoming the first Belgian player to win a bracelet at the World Series.
In 2013, he won the $5,000 Pot Limit Hold’em event for $224,560; and in 2014, he won the $3,000 No Limit Hold’em 6-Handed event for $508,640 and his third bracelet.
In 2016, he came very close to claiming his 4th WSOP victory. He finished second in the $10,000 No Limit Hold’em 6-Handed Championship. He lost the heads-up battle for the title to Martin Kozlov from Australia, and had to be contented with the $411,441 second prize money.
In 2015, he made another runner-up finish, this time in the €25,600 NLHE high roller event at the WSOP Europe in Berlin for €342,620. 2010 WSOP Main Event champion Jonathan Duhamel beat him heads-up in that tournament.
Overall, Kitai has cashed in 50 World Series events so far, for a total of $2.777 million combined.
→ Live Cash Games ←
Kitai hasn’t appeared on any TV shows or live streams where he played cash games publicly.
→ Online Poker ←
As we wrote in our intro, Kitai started playing Limit Hold’em cash games online originally on partypoker under the screen name “kitbul”.
He started playing online tournaments in 2006 – the first recorded cash on his PocketFives profile is from August of that year. Meanwhile, he also opened up accounts on PokerStars and the now defunct poker site Full Tilt, with the screen names “legrouzin” and “bubbledav”, respectively. Across these accounts, he amassed $448,657 in MTT winnings.
In 2020, when the dreaded coronavirus pandemic forced all the World Series of Poker events to be played online, Kitai cashed in an impressive 11 events on Natural8-GGNetwork. The biggest score out of those 11 was a $57,592 cash, which he got for coming in 54th in the $25,000 NLH POKER PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP event.
However, the best was still yet to come for him that year.
In November 2020, Kitai won the $10,300 buy-in Main Event at GG’s new high roller series, the Super MILLION$. He bested a 581-player field and won a massive $726,839 prize. That is by far the biggest online tournament score of his career to date.
→ Sponsorships←
Kitai became a sponsored pro for the French poker site Winamax in May 2008. He’s been a member of Team Winamax ever since.
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