ME Final 9

[Reel Deal]

Here are the official chip counts and seating assignments for the 2008 November Nine:

Seat 1: Dennis Phillips - 26,295,000
Seat 2: Craig Marquis - 10,210,000
Seat 3: Ylon Schwartz - 12,525,000
Seat 4: Scott Montgomery - 19,690,000
Seat 5: Darus Suharto - 12,520,000
Seat 6: Chino Rheem - 10,230,000
Seat 7: Ivan Demidov - 24,400,000
Seat 8: Kelly Kim - 2,620,000
Seat 9: Peter Eastgate - 18,375,000

[redbank09]

what if one of them dies before the final table? does the #10 take that spot?

[Dodoubled]

They'll probably just put an urn on the seat and a photograph on the table and blind the person off.
Maybe even a chalk outline, if they're feeling really saucy.

[Talking Poker]

Time to significantly increase the Life Insurance, IMO.

[Talking Poker]

Bios:

Ivan Demidov (Moscow, Russia)
-- Age 27
-- Professional Poker Player
-- Single
-- Enjoys skiing and scuba diving
-- Playing at the WSOP for the first time, this year
-- Finished 11th place in Event #44

Peter Eastgate (Odense, Denmark)
-- Age 22
-- Professional Poker Player
-- High school graduate, no college
-- Paid cash to enter

Kelly Kim (Whittier, CA)
-- Age 31
-- Professional Poker Player
-- Born in Korea
-- Used to work as a business analyst
-- Earned his college degree from the UC-San Diego
-- Paid cash to enter
-- Had three WSOP cashes, all last year

Scott Montgomery (Perth, Ontario – Canada)
-- Age 26
-- Professional Poker Player
-- Has been playing poker for about four years
-- Paid cash to enter

Craig Marquis (Arlington, TX)
-- Age 23
-- College Student
-- Has been playing poker for only about 18 months
-- Plays the guitar
-- Plans to buy his family a swimming pool with the prize money
-- Paid cash to enter

Dennis Phillips (St. Louis, MO)
-- Age 53
-- Account manager for a commercial trucking company
-- Actually lives in suburban town of Cottage Hills, IL – but calls St. Louis his home
-- Gained entry by winning a WSOP satellite held at Harrahs Casino in St. Louis
-- Nickname is "Fordman"
-- Earned B.A. college degree

David "Chino" Rheem (Los Angeles, CA)
-- Age 28
-- Professional Poker Player
-- Paid cash to enter
-- Has been playing poker for about ten years

Ylon Schwartz (Brooklyn, NY)
-- Age 38
-- Former professional chess player, who hustled games in New York City's public parks for money
-- Discovered he could make a far better living playing poker, and has been doing so the last several years
-- 12th time to cash at the WSOP (more than any other finalist); best previous finish was 15th place in the $2,000 buy-in Limit Hold'em event this year

Darus Suharto (Toronto, Ontario – Canada)
-- Age 39
-- Accountant
-- Born in Indonesia
-- Earned MBA from Indiana University
-- Won satellite entry into the Main Event

[drewjax]

I lawled............

nh

[Robbie Robb]

Apparently 6 of the 9 are PokerStars players (who have dubbed them the PokerStars Six). Not sure if that means that they've qualified through Stars or have since signed with Stars once going deep, but they have their hooks in six of 'em.

[Kurn]

There's a bit of a discussion going on over at that other board about Craig Marquis 4-bet shove with AQo that crippled the ultimate 10th place finisher. The conventional-wisdom posters are criticizing the play because, as one said "with a raise and a reraise in front of him, Marquis should understand that his AQo is a dog to the 3-bet range."

What unmitigated crap. Players do not make the final 27 or so of a 8,000+ player tourney by playing Sklansky-tight (OK, Joe Hachem may be an exception). You have to be LAGgy to get this far. I have no problem standing firm that with 10 left in the ME, AQo is a CLEAR FAVORITE vs the 3-bet range of ANY player left.

Sure, the loser of the hand showed QQ and got beat by running hearts for a flush, but that's results-oriented thinking. Besides, the 4-bet got the original raiser to fold AK which cleaned up 3 outs for Marquis.

As an aside, I think the logic behind my argument also points out how very hard it will continue to be for Phil Hellmuth to win the ME again. he simply plays too tight post-flop for this size event. WPT events with < 1,000 runners are different.

[Reel Deal]

I'm not sure I completely agree w/that Kurn b/c I don't think you're considering the fact of how tight some of these guys probably got on the FT bubble. This FT is particularly huge with the amount of press and hype that will occur from now until Nov.

[Wes]

it's the WSOP main event, not 25/50 online. Most of these people don't even 3bet anything outside of the top 7% of hands unless they get to some shortstacking threshold where they push more. Perhaps watching the past couple WSOPs would clarify this point.

And saying that Phil Hellmuth, or small ball, can't win the WSOP main event is kind of dumb. 90% of the field is a retard with 10k. Odds are that one of the majority will win it.

[omahilo]

phil hellmuth continues to show he is one of the best poker players despite these fields... he finished very well at this yrs ME.

He also almost won another bracelet (would of been #12) in the HORSE event right before the ME. to say he couldnt win the main event is crazy. If one pro could do it I think it would be him just for the fact he does play so tight and lets all the idiots eliminate themselves. Like storm said, the ME is basically like the sunday millions are stars except the buyin is 10K instead of $215. Its a crapshoot and 90% of the field are donks.

[Fildy]

at least 90%

[JDMcNugent7]

I think you are very wrong

[Kurn]

I'm certainly not denigrating his play.

I didn't say he can't win, I said it will be very hard. He turned down a hugely +EV flop on (I think) day 4 when he had something like a pair + FD + gut when playing a M of less than 10.

We've all seen him with a 9 BB stack raise to 3x and fold on the flop when he misses. Superior skill can only compensate for giving away so many chips.

He's a great player. he reads people as well as anybody and sets long term traps based on what he's seen. But the minefield of 8,000+ players slants the odds in favor of the gamblers.

The math of the game is such that you can't play Sklansky TPFAP style and win huge events. As I said, a 700-1000 person WPT event he's going to win his share, I just don't think he's got enough gamble in him for the ME.

Just an opinion. If I'm wrong it will neither be the first nor the last time.

No matter how big your edge, you only get so many +EV shots.

[Kurn]

And I admit I'm posting a generalization. I have no idea how tight the table was playing, and rereading my post, I made one mistake. I think I should have said AQo is +EV vs the 3-bettor with the dead money of the original raiser in the pot. It's a bubble situation, and *if* they're playing tighter than normal the reraiser folds 99-JJ a big percentage of the time, and the original raiser may fold QQ (we know he'll fold AK)

I may watch the play up to that point and say "oops, no way you shove AQo into THAT guy when he 3-bets." but absent that kind of read, I don't think the play was terrible at all.

In his place I make that play all the time. I either double up and have a nice stack for November or walk away with a half million after taxes and NOT have my life become a public specatcle for 4 months. Pure win-win, if you ask me.

[Tony Cheval]

They see me castlin', they hatin', patrollin' and tryin' to catch me checkin' dirty.