When Day 7 of the 2013 World Series of Poker Main Event kicked off at around noon Pacific on Monday, 27 players had visions of bricks of money, a gaudy bracelet, and a life-changing title bouncing around in their hands. When play wrapped up at 2:30am this morning, just nine were left holding on those dreams. The newest edition of the WSOP November Nine has been determined.
While the casual poker fan might not recognize most of the faces from television broadcasts of old, this looks like it could be the strongest final table the Main Event has seen in years. And it all starts with the chip leader, JC Tran. Tran has been a staple on the tournament circuit for years, now racking up over $9 million in lifetime earnings when the minimum $733,224 for the final table is counted. He is the proud owner of two World Series of Poker bracelets, one World Poker Tour (WPT) title, and an amazing eight top-ten WPT finishes. With an even 38 million chips, he has a solid lead on Amir Lehavot, who has 29.7 million. Amazingly, Tran began Day 7 as the third shortest stack with only 1.97 million chips.
As for Lehavot, he too, has a WSOP bracelet to his name.
Then there is Mark Newhouse, who rose to prominence as an online player during the poker boom, leaping onto the live scene with a $1.5 million win in the 2006 WPT Borgata Poker Open. He had a number of deep runs in WPT and WSOP after that, but has been fairly quiet in poker the last couple years…until now.
JC Tran may have made the largest chip leap on Day 7, but the absolute shortest stack going into Monday also came out the other side. David “Raptor” Benefield had just 1.84 million chips at the start of the final three tables and while he again is the short stack with just 6.375 million, he is nonetheless a member of the 2013 November Nine. He’ll have to make a move early, as blinds and antes will start at 200,000/400,000/50,000, but if anyone can handle a short stack, he can. Benefield was one of the top online poker pros in the world before Black Friday, contributing his knowledge to the poker community as an instructor at CardRunners.
Also of note are Ryan Reiss, a respected WSOP Circuit grinder who has now cashed four times in this Series, and Michiel Brummelhuis, a Dutch pro who hadn’t played in the WSOP since 2009 and wasn’t even sure before it started this year if he was going to go.
The nine final table members now have about three and a half months to relax, prepare, and do whatever they’d like before the tournament picks up again on November 4th. On that day, play will proceed until three players remain. Those three will return on November 5th to determine a champion. The final table will be broadcast on ESPN and ESPN2 “virtually live” on a 15-minute delay with hole cards and commentary.
2013 World Series of Poker Main Event – Final Table Chip Counts
1. JC Tran – 38,000,000
2. Amir Lehavot – 29,700,000
3. Marc McLaughlin – 26,525,000
4. Jay Farber – 25,975,000
5. Ryan Riess – 25,875,000
6. Sylvain Loosli – 19,600,000
7. Michiel Brummelhuis – 11,275,000
8. Mark Newhouse – 7,350,000
9. David Benefield – 6,375,000
2013 World Series of Poker Main Event – Final Table Payouts
1st – $8,359,531
2nd – $5,173,170
3rd – $3,727,023
4th – $2,791,983
5th – $2,106,526
6th – $1,600,792
7th – $1,225,224
8th – $944,593
9th – $733,224
* Accompanying image courtesy WSOP.com
