Hemish Shah (7 April 1968 – 5 September 2001) was an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

stockbroker A stockbroker is a regulated broker, broker-dealer, or registered investment adviser (in the United States) who may provide financial advisory and investment management services and execute transactions such as the purchase or sale of stocks an ...

before he became a professional

poker Poker is a family of comparing card games in which players wager over which hand is best according to that specific game's rules. It is played worldwide, however in some places the rules may vary. While the earliest known form of the game w ...

player, and the winner of

Late Night Poker ''Late Night Poker'' is a British television series that helped popularize poker in the 2000s. It used "under the table" cameras that enabled the viewer to see each player's cards. The show originally ran for six series between 1999 and 2002 ...

series 4, where he beat the season 2 champion Simon "Aces" Trumper in the final heads-up confrontation. During the tapings of Late Night Poker series 5 (won by

Padraig Parkinson Padraig Parkinson (born 1957 in Galway) is an Irish poker player. He is chiefly recognised as the grand final winner of Late Night Poker series 5 (where he defeated Korosh Nejad) and as the third-place finisher of the 1999 World Series of Poke ...

) players would look up and say "Thanks, Hemish" when they hit a lucky draw. The final for the season was the same day as Hemish's

funeral A funeral is a ceremony connected with the final disposition of a corpse, such as a burial or cremation, with the attendant observances. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember and respect th ...

and the players all insisted on attending it. (The production company flew them to

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helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...

.) In all, over 75 poker players attended his funeral.

WSOP

He won a

World Series of Poker The World Series of Poker (WSOP) is a series of poker tournaments held annually in Paradise, Nevada and, since 2004, sponsored by Caesars Entertainment. It dates its origins to 1970, when Benny Binion invited seven of the best-known poker pla ...

bracelet A bracelet is an article of jewellery that is worn around the wrist. Bracelets may serve different uses, such as being worn as an ornament. When worn as ornaments, bracelets may have a wikt:supportive, supportive function to hold other items of ...

and $312,340 in 2001 for winning the $5,000 Limit Texas Hold-em event.List of Participations http://www.rankinghero.com/en/players/7750/Hemish.Shah/stats.html#block_lastparticipations_venue During the event he had to leave the table as he was suffering from stomach cramps. He went to hospital upon returning to England, but suffered a cardiac arrest at 03:00

GMT Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is the mean solar time at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London, counted from midnight. At different times in the past, it has been calculated in different ways, including being calculated from noon; as a cons ...

on 5 September 2001 and died, aged just 33. He was in good health (he didn't smoke, drink

alcohol Alcohol most commonly refers to: * Alcohol (chemistry), an organic compound in which a hydroxyl group is bound to a carbon atom * Alcohol (drug), an intoxicant found in alcoholic drinks Alcohol may also refer to: Chemicals * Ethanol, one of sev ...

or eat

meat Meat is animal flesh that is eaten as food. Humans have hunted, farmed, and scavenged animals for meat since prehistoric times. The establishment of settlements in the Neolithic Revolution allowed the domestication of animals such as chic ...

) and his death shocked the poker world.

References

Article from The Guardian by Victoria Coren

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shah, Hemish 1968 births 2001 deaths Poker players from London World Series of Poker bracelet winners English stockbrokers English Hindus 20th-century English businesspeople