2009 World Series of Poker
Event 8 - $2,500 No Limit Deuce to Seven Draw
Day: 3
According to Barry Greenstein, Chen is a deuce-to-seven lowball specialist. This will be his largest WSOP cash to date and he comes into today with 159,000 chips.
Talebi's biggest win came back in 2004 when he took down a preliminary event at the Five-Diamond World Poker Classic for over $160,000. He comes into today as the short stack with 94,500 chips.
Monnette has nine WSOP cashes to date, including one already this year. With 259,000 chips, John is the chip leader for the final table and will be loking to ride his way to his first gold bracelet.
Kesselman hails from New York and is one of the more unknown faces that regularly travels the tournament circuit. He's amassed over $450,000 in career tournament winnings. This tournament marks his fifth WSOP cash and second final table.
The 27 year old highlights his poker accomplishments with a second-place finish in the $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha event at the L.A. Poker Classic earlier this year. He also won a WCOOP event in 2006 playing razz.
Zimmerman began playing poker online at the age of 18. He enjoys writing poetry and also has six unpublished books written. He'' come into the final table second in chips with 238,000.
Phil Ivey tops the list of most well known competitors in the final seven, but he doesn't top the leaderboard. That honor goes to John Monnette, who will come into the final table with 259,000 chips. Raphael Zimmerman is the only other player to eclipse the 200,000 mark and is hot on Monnette's heels with 238,000. Here's the official seating chart and chip counts for today.
Seat 1: Raphael Zimmerman - 238,000
Seat 2: Eric Kesselman - 119,400
Seat 3: John Monnette - 259,000
Seat 4: Rodeen Talebi - 94,500
Seat 5: Yan Chen - 159,000
Seat 6: Elia Ahmadian - 136,900
Seat 7: Phil Ivey - 106,300
Only Phil Ivey and Eric Kesselman have ever tasted WSOP gold before, but they won't be giving up easily. Both of them would love to return to the winners' circle. Everyone else at the table is clawing and scratching just as hard to get their first gold bracelet wrapped around their wrist and pocket the nearly $100,000 first-place prize money.
Stay tuned as we'll return back here at 2:00 PM local time for all the live action from the final table!