From 27 Will Come the November Nine... Day 7 Awaits!
Welcome to Day 7, the last day of play this summer at the 2013 World Series of Poker. From a starting field of 6,352 players in for 10 grand apiece just 27 remain, and after today just nine of them will leave the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino knowing their 2013 WSOP Main Event tourney journeys will be continuing another exciting step further to November's final table.
Anton Morgenstern of Germany today returns to the biggest stack of 21,955,000, having seized the lead and created space between himself and the rest of the field during yesterday's last two levels. The Frenchman Sylvain Loosli is his nearest challenger currently in second position with 14,125,000.
Chris Lindh and Fabian Ortiz will also come back to eight-figure stacks, as will a couple of two-time WSOP bracelet winners, JC Tran and Carlos Mortensen. Mortensen, of course, is looking to add a second WSOP Main Event title to the one he earned back in 2001.
In theory the leaders stand the greatest chance of surviving today, although looking back to a year ago neither of the top two chip leaders with 27 left — Marc-Andre Ladouceur and Daniel Strelitz — made the final table, finishing 13th and 24th, respectively. As it happened, of the top nine in the counts to start last year's Day 7, only two survived the day (Robert Salaburu and Russell Thomas).
That it is possible to overcome starting a Day 7 short and still survive players need only ask Steve Gee who began last year's final day 22nd of 27, yet still made the final nine. In fact they can ask him today, as Gee is back for his second straight Day 7 (!), this time coming back to begin in 23rd position. Thus might others with below average stacks like Mark Newhouse, Marc McLaughlin, Yevgeniy Timoshenko, Ryan Riess, Rep Porter, and David Benefield take Gee's example from last year to heart.
Play begins at 12 noon Pacific time with the start of Level 30, when players from Argentina, Brazil, Canada, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and the United States will reconvene to determine who among them will form the 2013 WSOP Main Event's November Nine.
Come back to PokerNews then for comprehensive coverage of today's action. While waiting for play to start, check out Kristy Arnett's recap of yesterday's action and preview of today: