Wsop Final Table Tonight
Monday November 10,2014 WORLD SERIES OF POKER ACES RECONVENE
This year's November Nine are ready to rumble today.
After a four-month break the 2014 World Series of Poker main event final table reconvenes today (Monday) with the November Nine raring to go at it in a bid to win the $10 million first price, a very expensive WSOP winner's bracelet and the prestige of ultimately besting an original entry field of 6,683 poker players.
The nine players from six different nations are back in Las Vegas and will assemble in the Penn & Teller Theater inside the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino to compete in the televised competition this afternoon Vegas-time.
Each final table player is guaranteed at least $730,725 this year, benefitting from a prize pool of $62,820,000 generated by the $10,000 buy-ins. The longer they survive, the higher their prize as rewards climb into six and seven-figure territory as the game progresses.
The plan today is to play down to the last three survivors before taking a break and returning Tuesday to decide the winner, and it is at this stage where the really big money resides, with the winner taking home $10 million; the runner up $5,145,968 and the third placer $3,806,402.
The average stack is 22,276,667, with blinds at 200,000-400,000 with a 50,000 ante, and these are the men who will be facing each other across the felt later today:
Jorryt Van Hoof, a professional player from the Netherlands, is just five days short of his 32nd birthday and will be looking to leverage his final table chip lead into the most prestigious victory in the world of poker. He has three previous WSOP cashes to his credit and a wealth of experience, especially on the internet, where he is feared and respected as "TheCleaner21".
Mark Newhouse (29) is a professional from North Carolina who has achieved the rare distinction of appearing in back-to-back WSOP main event final tables last year and this, and is expected to do well. He's a talented player with plenty of experience and big wins gleaned from seven years of competing in World Series of Poker events, and enters the final table third in the chip counts.
Billy Pappaconstantinou (30) is one of the real "characters" at the table and was once a dealer who is perhaps better known as a world champion foosball player. The Massachusetts amateur is an entertaining player with big rail support and is sure to be a crowd favourite, albeit one lacking an impressive tournament track record.
Felix Stephensen (24) is an experienced Swedish pro currently living in London and respected as an effective online high stakes player under the nom de plume "FallAtyourFeet”. He has made it onto the final table on only his second World Series of Poker attendance, and funded his $10,000 buy-in through a successful World Cup Football bet. Despite his relative youth he is a talented and experienced player and one to watch.
Andoni Larrabe is, at 22, the youngest player on this year's final table and is fourth in chip counts. He comes from the Basque region of Spain, and is the first Spaniard to make a WSOP main event final since Carlos Mortenson did it back in 2001. In addition to several WSOP cashes, Larrabe is another next-generation internet player who has scored some serious wins online as "pollopopeye".
William Tonkin (27) from New Jersey is an internet professional player who is known online as Will Tonkin21 and amazin_mets. Although he prefers cash game action, he is a very handy tournament player with WSOP and other major tournament cashes to his credit.
Dan Sindelar (31) hails from Columbus in Nebraska, but lives in Las Vegas as a professional player and enjoys an impressive history in top tournaments as a cool, calculating and talented player.
Martin Jacobson (33) is a modest, understated but formidable poker professional who has career earnings approaching $5 million and a reputation for skilled and disciplined activity that has earned him respect as a "player's player". Originally from Sweden, he is currently based in London and has been pulling in cashes – some of them six-figures – at WSOP and other major tournaments for years. His performance this year has been especially noteworthy; he achieved chip leader status on the first-day entry flights of the main event and managed to retain it all the way through until the last pre-final table day.
Bruno Politano (31) is another final table player who should provide plenty of entertainment and definitely noise from a vociferous group of railside followers who have travelled from his native Brazil. The extrovert and friendly Politano is short on chips but big on crown appeal, and is the first Brazilian ever to make a WSOP final table. He has a number of tournament cashes to his credit as an amateur but keen player, including WSOP events, but prior to his final table entry his earnings had yet to breach $70,000.
