Jeff Shulman is no stranger to the poker table and the WSOP. In fact, he's not even a stranger to the Main Event final table. Back in 2000, Shulman placed seventh in the grand daddy of them all for nearly $150,000. Prior to making this November Nine, Shulman had racked up 13 WSOP cashes and three final table appearances. Besides the finish back in the 2000 Main Event, Shulman's best finish was a seventh place in 2005 in the $5,000 Limit Hold'em event. He took home over $50,000 for that effort.
As the editor of CardPlayer Magazine, Shulman is constantly immersed in poker and surrounded by some of the games best players. That's one way to keep your game fresh and your skills growing. The other way is to hire a coach. Notably, Shulman hired 11-time bracelet winner and arguably the best tournament player in the world, Phil Hellmuth, to be his coach in the months off leading up to the final table. Even with over $2.5 million in live tournament earnings, Shulman's trying to stay one step ahead of his competitors.
His father, Barry Shulman, also made headlines recently when he won the WSOP Europe Main Event. If Jeff happens to claim the bracelet here, the duo will become only the second father and son to do so, putting them in a category with legend Doyle Brunson and his son Todd Brunson.
Coming into the final table second-to-last in chips is Antoine Saout. The former engineering student may be an unknown name to many, but since reaching the November Nine Saout's been racking up cashes all over the world along the tournament circuit.
Prior to his big splash here at the Main Event, Saout had two cashes on record coming from the 2008 and 2009 Spanish Poker Tour. Since, he's cashed five times. Two of those in-the-money finishes include the Partouche Poker Tour and the Barriere Poker Tour. His biggest and most prominent finish since reaching the final nine is a seventh place at the WSOP Europe Main Event. Combining his two cashes in WSOP events puts Saout at nearly $1.5 million earned at the WSOP alone. He'll have a chance to better that today if he can improve at the final table.
Saout was born in Morlaix, France, but now calls Saint Martin des Champs his home. An avid online player, he was able to win his way to this year's Main Event via an online satellite. He regularly multitables online and attributes his math and analytical skills for his success on the felt. Saout will be looking to apply those skills on the biggest poker stage in the world as he attempts to engineer a win.
The kid from Shelby Township, Michigan is everything Darvin Moon is not. He’s young, he wears his hat backwards, he owns a computer and he plays online poker. In fact, he’s probably played more hands in a weekend online that Moon has played in his lifetime.
At 21 years and 354 days old, Joe Cada could become the youngest WSOP Main Event Champion in history, trumping last year’s winner Peter Eastgate’s accomplishment by almost a year (he and Eastgate actually sat at the same table on Days 4 and 5). He’s already amassed career earnings of almost half a million dollars (not counting whatever he takes home this week of course). This “former” college student and friend of last year’s 10th place finisher Dean Hamrick bought his first house at the age of 19! Kids these days…
Cada carries a calm demeanor and a wealth of late-stage tournament experience he garnered online. Entering the final table fifth in chips, Cada has position on big stack Eric Buchman which could prove critical down the stretch. In a recent interview with CardPlayer, the self-proclaimed “B” student said he has always been a good test taker, which may serve him well… In the world of tournament poker, no test is bigger than this one.
30-year-old professional poker player Eric Buchman enters the final table as its second largest stack. During the lead up to this year’s November Nine final table, you might say Buchman and several of his final table comrades were overshadowed by the tremendous amount of media attention devoted to Phil Ivey – the first big-name pro to reach the WSOP Main Event final table in this new format – and Darvin Moon; overwhelming chip leader and old fashioned everyman. Make no mistake about it, Eric Buchman has a lot of chips and the potential to make a serious run at the title.
The product of a brick and mortar poker education from card rooms in Atlantic City, Connecticut and underground clubs in New York City, Buchman began his poker-playing career back in college. His brother introduced him to the game and after realizing he could make a decent living at it, he ditched the hobby tag and started playing professionally after earning his degree.
The New Yorker finished 6th in Event 25 at this year’s WSOP and came close to snagging his first bracelet with a runner-up finish in 2006. With tournament cashes in excess of $900,000, Buchman is no stranger to big buy-in final tables. OK, maybe not this big, but only a select few in the history of the game can lay claim to that accomplishment. Come Tuesday morning, however, Buchman can add his name to the list.
[user66118]
Steven Begleiter
We'll be hearing a lot of shouting from Steven Begleiter's cheerleaders today, and the man they call "Begs" will be looking to make some noise of his own. After an impressive charge over the final days of July's action, Begleiter will begin November play with a third-place chip stack.
Things certainly are looking up for the 47-year-old from Chappaqua, New York in recent times. As a manager with financial giant Bear Stearns, Begleiter endured the "liquidity crisis" of 2007-08 that left the corporation laying in ruins on Wall Street. Begs made a quick recovery though, and he says he intends to keep his current day job regardless of his final table finish. We won't doubt him, but we'd guess the other Principals at his private equity firm would understand if he ate his words when this is all said and done.
Begleiter couldn't cash in his first Main Event last year, but he got another shot at it in 2009. After winning his 22-person home game league, he's parlayed this second chance into a final table and seven figures of cash. Twenty percent of Begleiter's winnings will go to his buddies at the home game, so there are a lot of people rooting hard for Begs to score big today.
You may not have been familiar with his name until now, but it's no fluke to find Kevin Schaffel at this final table. Schaffel has played the Main Event for the last five years running, and he's three-for-five in cashes. Before this year, though, his biggest achievment was a 42nd-place score in 2004. He's done a bit better this time around, sitting with about 50 big blinds with just nine players separating him and a bracelet.
Schaffel tells us he started playing poker when he was just 12. And that was 40 years ago. He's now semi-retired from his own printing business, and he's quickly finding major tournament success. Just after picking up his final table check in July, Schaffel had another big six-figure win at the Legends of Poker in L.A. the following month. Only Prahlad Friedman could put the brakes on his bid for a WPT title in the interim, but he was rewarded with nearly a half-million dollars as runner up.
Riding a hot streak, Schaffel has experience and a favorable table position working for him. He might well be the dark horse that charges from the middle of the pack today.
[user38449]
Phil Ivey
Seven bracelets; two this year. $12 million in career tournament earnings. 36 WSOP cashes. 3rd on the all-time money list with the top spot in sight (he’ll claim it with a fifth-or-better finish). 1 WPT title. Wildly respected and equally feared by his peers. All this and he’s just 32 years old. This man truly needs no introduction.
A dream scenario for poker fans around the world, the player widely recognized as the best all-around poker player in the world has made the final table of the World Series of Poker Main Event and the world has taken notice. Earlier this month, Ivey appeared on the cover of ESPN the Magazine. He was featured in a segment on E60 and has helped attract mainstream media outlets the likes of USA Today, the New York Times, the Associated Press and even a correspondent from Playboy.
While it’s still too early to tell what kind of effect an Ivey win would have on the poker world, we can assure you it’ll be nothing short of massive.
Ivey enters the final table with 9,765,000 in chips, in seventh position overall, but let’s be honest… that means very little at the moment. All eyes are indeed on Ivey and with 40 big blinds to start the day, he remains an imminent threat to the other eight players at the table.
26-year-old James Akenhead is the short stack heading into this year's Main Event Final Table, the Kelly Kim of the 2009 November Nine. Akenhead, a former train conductor from England, is part of the new generation of young poker pros — and one who's had considerable success. He has a staggering 26 cashes in live tournaments in the last two years.
A few months ago, Akenhead finished 9th at the WSOP Europe Main Event, pocketing $109,687. And who can forget Akenhead's heart-breaking second-place finish to Grant Hinkle in Event #2 ($1,500 No-Limit Hold'em) of the 2008 WSOP? With roughly level stacks, Akenhead's ace-king was all in against Hinkle's 10-4 — but Hinkle flopped a full house 10-4-10 and turned the case ten to make quads for the victory.
No doubt Akenhead will be hoping that his two previous WSOP final tables will help prepare him for what's to come here today.
The only way you might not know that Darvin Moon has been the "overnight" chip leader of the WSOP Main Event for the last four months is if you're new to poker or if you've been living in a cave in the mountains of Afghanistan.
Moon, a logger from Maryland, is the complete antithesis of the young online poker whiz kid. He has never played online poker, does not have an email address and in fact doesn't even own a computer. The 2009 Main Event was the first WSOP tournament Moon ever played. He won his entry by winning a satellite tournament in West Virigina and had never flown on an airplane prior to his trip to Las Vegas last July.
But don't let Moon's apparent "backwoods" demeanor full you. He played with incredibly savvy to make his way to this year's final table, and in fact was never all in at risk of elimination at any point during the first eight days of the tournament.
[user66118]
Just after dinner time on the evening of July 15th, ten patched-up poker players huddled around the last table left in the vacant expanse of the Amazon Room for the most important card game of their lives. Under the bright lights of the ESPN cameras, the eyes of the poker world were upon them.
Less than an hour into ten-handed action, Jordan Smith peeked down at two red aces in the hole -- a beautiful sight deep in any major tournament, let alone the Main Event of the World Series of Poker. Smith and chip leader Darvin Moon went to war in a heads-up battle that culminated in the final betting actions of the night. On an eight-high flop, Moon put out a bet of 4 million chips, and Smith check-raised all in with the overpair. The soft-spoken logger from the hills of Maryland quickly made the call as the throng of spectators jockeyed for position along the rail for the monumental showdown.
Moon had been running hot for several days, and he turned over two red eights for top set. A gutted Smith was drawing thin for his survival, and a blank apiece on the turn and river sealed his demise and sent a wave of celebration coursing through the arena.
We had found our November Nine.
*********
Fast forward three months and twenty-three days, and you'll find the Rio once again buzzing with anticipation. Just those nine players are left alive from a field that began with 6,494, and there's life-changing money on the line. Hundreds of interviews and a few lucrative sponsorship deals later, the finalists are back in Las Vegas and ready for the final battle. Here's how they'll stack up when the cards go into the air after this extended hiatus:
Seat 1: Darvin Moon (58,930,000)
Seat 2: James Akenhead (6,800,000)
Seat 3: Phil Ivey (9,765,000)
Seat 4: Kevin Schaffel (12,390,000)
Seat 5: Steven Begleiter (29,885,000)
Seat 6: Eric Buchman (34,800,000)
Seat 7: Joseph Cada (13,215,000)
Seat 8: Antoine Saout (9,500,000)
Seat 9: Jeff Shulman (19,580,000)
The counts don't lie; Darvin Moon is lapping the field with more than 30% of the total chips in play. Alongside him we've got a Wall Street investor (Begleiter) and an engineering student from France (Saout), a printing entrepreneur (Schaffel) and a baby-faced online grinder (Cada). Pros? We've got those too. Buchman has been a consistent performer in the live tournament poker scene with more than 20 cashes in his blossoming career. Akenhead is a standout on the European circuit and a consistent WSOP performer. As the only man with Main Event final table experience, Shulman has been making waves with his criticism of the WSOP despite his impressive stat line in its events. And then there's Phil Ivey. What really needs to be said? More than $12 million in career winnings and seven gold bracelets (including two this year). Looking to become the youngest player to collect eight WSOP titles, Ivey occupies the top spot on most people's handicapping sheets and is the odds-on betting favorite at your weekly home game. It's shaping up to be one of the most exciting Main Event final tables in history.
The World Series of Poker is just about ready to turn off the lights on its 40th birthday party, but we've still got to cut the cake. The 2009 edition of the November Nine is set to take to the felt tomorrow (Saturday) at high noon.
![[user38449]](/img/avatars/avatar.svg){kind=avatar}
