Darus Suharto may share a name with the notorious Indonesian dictator but that's where the similarities end. Well, almost. They were both born in Indonesia, but that's more of a technicality.

November Niner Darus Suharto makes his home in Toronto, Canada. An accountant by trade, he is used to working with numbers, and that aptitude certainly helped him on his path to poker superstardom at the 2008 World Series of Poker.

Charming, intelligent and always ready with a big smile, Suharto has journeyed far from his beginnings. Born in Indonesia in 1969, he immigrated to North America and obtained an MBA from Indiana University, and soon after took a job as an accountant.

Although he dabbled in poker in college, he didn't seriously take up the game until 2005, when a friend introduced him to online play. He made his first deposit and has since been building a bankroll on just 15 hours of play a week.

With one live cash under his belt - 448th place in the 2006 World Series of Poker Main Event - Darus wasn't expecting to go deep when he freerolled his way into the 2008 WSOP World Championship.

Certainly, he wasn't expecting to make the final table. A talented online player, Darus doesn't play much live, and his run in Vegas during the Series wasn't too profitable before the Main Event began. Darus tried his hand in some smaller events at Caesars Palace but didn't cash. But he took it in stride.

"You know, that's all right; they were small events," he admitted to PokerListings.com in a post-Main Event interview. "I did well in the big one."

And of that he should be very proud.

Darus will be the only amateur in a group of professional and semiprofessional players when the final table plays out in the fall of 2008. But he's not worried. His objective when he took up poker was to make enough money to pay off his mortgage, and he's certainly accomplished that.

In fact, at the rate he's going, he'll be able to afford many additional mortgages in the years to come.

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