The 2013 World Series of Poker Main Event final table chip leader J.C. Tran has signed for online poker site 888poker! Tran, a 36-year-old poker professional from Sacramento, California, has two WSOP titles, a WPT title and a World Championship of Online Poker Main Event title under his belt and is the big favourite to take down the $8.3 million first place prize money at the WSOP Main Event on November 9. Whatever happens on the final table, he is still guaranteed to get a minimum payday of $733,224! Not bad for a guy who already has $9 million in career winnings, hah?
"I am extremely excited to work with 888poker and looking forward to a great experience. I can't wait to represent 888poker at my best and help in any way possible," he said in a press release last Sunday.
"We are excited to have JC Tran join our Team 888poker, his attitude towards the game and inviting personality embodies what we look for in our Team ambassadors. This year Team 888poker will be at its strongest and should bring some exciting content and opportunities to our continuously growing poker room. Good luck to Tran and the rest of our Team," Inbal Lavi, Vice President of 888poker, stated.
The 2013 WSOP Main Event is now down to the last 9 remaining players who will re-unite to battle for the most prestigous poker prize in the world this November! This year's Main Event kicked off on July 6th with 6,352 players and a total prize pool of $59,708,800. Ten days later, only 9 remaining players are remaining to fight for the first prize of $8,359,531 + the Gold bracelet.
The following players will be seated around the 2013 WSOP Main Event final table in early November:
Player
Chip Count
JC Tran
38,000,000
Amir Lehavot
29,700,000
Marc McLaughlin
26,525,000
Jay Farber
25,975,000
Ryan Riess
25,875,000
Sylvain Loosli
19,600,000
Michiel Brummelhuis
11,275,000
Mark Newhouse
7,350,000
David Benefield
6,375,000
Two out of the remaining players has won WSOP Gold Bracelets in the past. The chip leader JC Tran has two previous WSOP Gold Bracelets: 2008's $1,500 No Limit Hold'em event #49 and 2009's $2,500 Pot-Limit Omaha event #30. Amir Lehavot won the 2011 $10,000 Pot-Limit Hold'em Chamionship.
The 2011 November 9 kicked off yesterday and still a world champion hasn't been crowned. When 6 of the 9 players had hit the rail, the tournament crew called it a day and play will now resume on Tuesday. The remaining players are Pius Heinz, from Germany, with 107 million chips. In second place is Ben Lamb, from USA, with 55 million chips, and in third place is Martin Staszko, from Czech Republic, with 42 million chips.
Nine days have now passed since the 2011 WSOP Main Event final table was set, and we are really sorry that we haven't been able to put up the news until now. Now, below you will find the 9 finalists and some brief information about each one of them (information taken from the official WSOP website). The final table (televised) will be played in the first week of November.
8 of the 9 finalists are guaranteed at least $1 million each, and the winner will become the World Champion and receive a prize check of almost 9 million dollars! All of the finalists have plenty of chips to work with, so expect it to be one of the most interesting final tables in WSOP history!
Jonathan Duhamel, 23, from Boucherville, Quebec became the first Canadian citizen in history to win a world championship. Two Canadians had previously finished in the runner-up spot in the 41-year-history of world championships. Tuan Lam second place in 2007, and Howard Goldfarb (Jerry Yang won) back in 1995 (Dan Harrington won). For the win Duhamel received the first place prize of $8,944,31 and his first WSOP bracelet. A big congratulations to the new world champion of poker!
The final table of the 2010 WSOP Main Event is getting closer and closer and it's high time to take a look at some of the finalists. We start with the most interesting one. Michael "the Grinder Mizrachi, who's a well-known face in the poker world a lot thanks to his participance in High Stakes Poker, will for sure be one the most interesting players to follow on the final table.
Michael Mizrachi will bring a 14,450,000 stack (7th place) with him to the final table on November 9. His biggest threats on the final table are Jonathan Dumhamel and John Dolan. Both Dumhamel and Dolan have monster stacks and, assuming that they continue playing the same way as before the final table, they wont be afraid to use them against the rest of the players who have equal stacks and are far behind. However, I'm quite sure that they will avoid playing against Mizrach because of his final table experience.
The 2010 WSOP Main Event is finally down to the final table as there are only 9 players left. However, we will have to wait until November 6th for the televised final table. Even though the final table doesn't include so many notables as we maybe would have hoped for, I'm still sure that it will be a super exciting one. I will especially keep an eye on the only non-pro Cuong "Sol" Nguyen and Michael "The Grinder" Mizrach who we used to see in high stakes poker a few years ago. Anyhow, here are the 9 finalists and brief information about each one of them.
Joe Cada, 21, became the new World Champion just a few moments ago! He and Darvin Moon played heads-up for almost 3,5 hours, and WOW what an heads-up it was! Cada started with more than double the chips than Moon. But Moon had no plans on giving up as he gave Cada a really tough fight and even overtook the lead for a while.
The big turn for Joe Cada came when he flopped middle pair and Moon pushed all-in with a straight draw. Cada's middle pair stood up and gave him the lead. Only 8 hands later it all came to an end...
Final Hand: Joe Cada has the button (big blind 3 million), Moon raise to 8 million. Cada double-checks his hand before announcing an all in. Moon dobule-checks his hand as well before making the call. 150 million is now in the pot.
The 2009 WSOP Main Event final table is now finally down to 2 players after 15 hours of play. Darvin Moon, 45, and Joseph Cada, 21, are going to play heads-up for the World Champion title and the first prize of $8,5 million on Monday night at 10:00 PST (Tuesday 07:00 AM). Joseph Cada has more than double the stack than his final opponent, Darvin Moon. However, both players still have plenty of chips and it will for sure be a thrilling heads-up to watch.
Phil Ivey ended up on 7th place Phil ivey, the big favorite to win the tournament, played very well on the final table and it seemed like no one wanted to double him up. But when Phil finally managed to get some action, the luck wasn't on his side. Phil moved all-in in before the flop with A[c]K[s] and Darvin Moon called with A[d]Q[s]. A queen came on the flop and neither turn & river cards were to no help for Phil. Phil Ivey ended up on 7th place and left lots of fans around the globe disappointed.
James Akenhead, from England, is a 26 years old Full Tilt PRO who will start the final table tomorrow with the least chips of the 9 remaining players. James hasn't been playing poker for a very long, but he has still been very successful and won over $800,000 online and live so far. At the 2008 World Series of Poker, he finished second in event #2 ($1,500 NL Texas Hold'em). With other words, he's not a newbie when it comes to playing in the World Series.
James will only bring 6,800,000 chips with him to the final table on Saturday, and he will need to double up at least 2 times quite fast in order to have some kind of chance of becoming the World Champion.
The 2009 WSOP final table is only 1 day away folks! Don't forget to vote for your favorite to win in our "Who will become the World Champion"-poll. For those of you who want to bet some money on the November 9 finalists, we can recommend KickOffPoker who also offers a €5000 deposit bonus & 45% cashback.
Antoine Saout, 25, is from Saint Martin des Champs, France and he's one of the 2 finalists that aren't born in USA. Antoine mostly plays poker online and there he has won about $200,000. Although he has been quite successful online, he has no records of any live tournament winnings, until now. This is Antoine's first ever WSOP and he won his entry to the Main Event through a $50 satellite online.
Antoine Saout had a really tough struggle to make it this far in the tournament. No one else than the other November 9 finalist Phil Ivey was seated on his left at the poker table for the 3 last days of the tournament. Now, however, both he and Phil Ivey are going to play for some serious cash on Saturday when the final table kicks off.
Antoine brings 9,500,000 with him to the final table on Saturday. He's quite short stacked with other words. But Antoine might have some kind of advantage because of the tough fight he had the 3 last days of the tournament. And who knows? Maybe he will be really dangerous if he mange to double up at the early stages of the final table.
Phillip "Phil" Ivey was born in Riverside, California February 1, 1976. When he was only 3 months old he and his family moved across the country to Roselle, New Jersey. Phil's grandpa taught him to play poker when he was just a kid, Phil then crafted his game playing skills amongst his co-workers at a New Brunswick, New Jersey telemarketing firm in the late 90's.
Used a fake ID When Phil was around 17 years old, he started going to Atlantic City to play poker for money. Of course he was too young to enter any of the casinos, but thanks to a fake ID card with the name "Jerome" on it he managed to get in. Phil used to play for 16-17 hours straight at the casino and sometimes he missed the last bus home so that he had to sleep on a bench near the casino. The casino staff used to call him "No home Jerome" because of that.
Kevin Schaffel, 52, a father of 2, was born and raised in Miami and is these days living Florida, USA. Kevin started playing poker at home with his family when he was just 11 years old. Many years later, he understood that he had some sort of talent for tournament poker and that he actually could make some money out of it. And so he did. Kevin has cashed in 7 bigger tournaments and won over $600,000 during his poker career. Even though he has been so successful and made so much money, he still wants more...
Aiming high Kevin's ambitions with poker part from making money, has always been to win either a WSOP Main Event, or a WPT title. If he wins the Main Event, which is the biggest dream for him, he will retire straight away and play poker and golf full-time.
Final table Kevin Schaffel brings 12,390,000 chips with him to the final table and is with that on 6th place. He doesn't see a quite short stacked Phil Ivey as a really big threat (like many of the other November 9 players) and he thinks that he has a decent chance of taking home the tournament even though he's far behind some of the players in chips.
Joseph Cada is only 21 years old and the youngest player on the final table. Joseph has been playing poker for 6 years and he started playing poker online at Party Poker at the age of 16. After that, he has achieved a lot in different tournaments at Full Tilt poker. This year Joseph Cada played his very first World Series and took the world of poker by storm as he made it to 2 final tables!
On Saturday Joseph and the other 8 remaining players will have hundreds of thousands people from all over the globe watching them. It will be very interesting to see if Joseph can handle the pressure like he said he could in an interview some time ago.
After some research about Joseph Cada it stands clear that he's one of the November 9 players that people talk the most about on different forums and websites. Many think that he won't have a chance on the final table, when others think that he has a great chance of becoming one of the last remaining players, but maybe not another Peter Eastgate.
Jeff Shulman, 34, was born and bred in Seattle, Washington and later on in life he moved to Las Vegas, where he's still living today with his wife and child. Jeff's biggest interests are golf, poker, and his job as editor for a big poker magazine, which his dad is the CEO of. But it's not from playing golf, or his job as an editor that has made him rich and famous.
Made millions from playing poker When Jeff started playing poker in 3rd grade at summer camp, he probably couldn't even dream of how successful he would become in poker some years after. Jeff became a good all-round player, but especially good at playing live poker tournaments, and it's from that he has built a fortune. In total he has won over $2,4 millions from different events in EPT, WPT, WSOP etc. Even though he has made so much money from different live tournaments, he has only won 1 major tournament.
Steven Begleiter, 47, reside in Chappaqua, New York with his family. Steven is a former executive for the investment bank Bear Stearns, where he has worked for almost 25 years. His interest for poker started already when he was a kid, and since then he has been playing poker regulary, but never for high stakes as he sees poker as a social thing.
He won his entry fee to the Main Event through a poker leuage with 20 players in his hometown. Whatever his final total cash winnings are at the final table, he intends to share 20% of it with those 20 players.
When Steven entered the main event, he had no expectations more than just making it to the money. When he finally got to the money, he noticed that players started dropping like flies, which made him feel more relaxed. It was at this time his long awaited winning streak started as well, and suddenly he had made it to the final table with huge stack. Steven Begleiter will start the final table on Saturday third in chips.
Eric Buchman, 29, from Valley Stream, New York started playing poker 10 years ago and was in the beginning just a break even player. But it only took him 2 years until he started winning. During his career as pro he has achieved quite a lot. For example he has cashed 9 times in WSOP and also has some great results from online poker cash games. In the beginning of the Main Event, Eric just had the strategy to survive to the next day. But on the last day of the tournament he changed his tactic and tried to accumulate as much chips as possible so he would put himself in a position to win the tournament. As the final table kicks off on Saturday, Eric is on second place with 34,800,000 chips.
With only 5 days left to go before the 2009 World Series of Poker final table kicks off, we will put a lot of our energy and focus on writing about the November 9 finalists and other relevant information that might be of interest. First out is chip leader Darvin Moon.
Darvin Moon - The working class hero Darvin Moon, 45, lives in Oakland, Maryland and work as a logger. He won his ticket to the Main Event through a satellite at a casino in West Virginia. But even though he was going to play the main event, he didn't put his hopes up high, and he could never ever imagine in his wildest fantasies that he would make it this far in the tournament. He was wrong as the whole cards and the flops were the best possible for him from start until the final table. Now he has a massive chip lead and is the big favorite to take home the main event.
On Saturday it's finally time for 2009 WSOP Main Event final table, and it's these 9 players who are going to fight for the first prize of $8.5 million and the World Champion title.
Darvin Moon - 58,930,000 Eric Buchman - 34,800,000 Steven Begleiter - 29,885,000 Jeff Shulman - 19,580,000 Joseph Cada - 13,215,000 Kevin Schaffel - 12,390,000 Phil Ivey - 9,765,000 Antoine Saout - 9,500,000 James Akenhead - 6,800,000
Darvin Moon has a huge chip lead of the last 9 remaining players in the Main Event, WSOP 2009. He's already guaranteed to become a millionare even if he ends up last on the final table in November. But Darvin takes everything very relaxed and continue working his "9-5" shift in the woods.
One of the finalists in the main event of WSOP this year is so disappointed on how the tournaments have been organized this year that he said he will throw away his bracelet if he takes home the whole tournament. All this in order to make a statement and the with the hopes that things will improve in future world series of poker for other poker players.
The 2013 WSOP Main Event is now down to the last 9 remaining players who will re-unite to battle for the most prestigous poker prize in the world this November! This year's Main Event kicked off on July 6th with 6,352 players and a total prize pool of $59,708,800. Ten days later, only 9 remaining players are remaining to fight for the first prize of $8,359,531 + the Gold bracelet.
