The Main Event Final Line-Up
Introduction
The end of last week saw the final line-up for the 2009 WSOP Main Event being determined. So, back to the Rio, in Las Vegas, in November will be: Darvin Moon, Eric Buchman, Steven Begleiter, Jeff Shulman, Joseph Cada, Kevin Schaffel, Phil Ivey, Antoine Saout and James Akenhead. Having qualified for the $8.5 million first prize they are all guaranteed to earn at least £1,263,603 – just for having qualified for the poker final in November!
USA rules the way
Of the nine finalists seven are from the USA, one from Britain and one from France; ranging from experienced professionals to relative youngsters and casual poker players. However, don’t be fooled by that ‘casual’ tag as these are no novice players, despite one of them only being 21 years of age they are all at the peak of their poker game – after all they have just qualified WSOP Main Even finals. Probably the best known of the professional names in there is Phil Ivey, the 33 year old Las Vegas resident who now has career earnings in excess of $17 million. He is joined in the finals by fellow Las Vegas resident and poker publisher – Jeff Shulman. The two foreigners in the final are James Akenhead from London and Antoine Saout who is from the charmingly named Saint Martin des Champs.
2009 finalist facts
Phil Ivey is already being tipped as a winner of the 2009 WSOP Main Event in November.
The average age of this years finalists is 35 years reflecting a spread of ages from 51 down to 21, so there’s hope for just about all of us poker players, in that you can win through at any age – if your poker game’s up to it. Although there’s four months to go before the finals, Phil Ivey is already being touted as the most likely winner out of the nine players. However, Darvin Moon should by no means be discounted. This 45 year old logger from Oakland, Maryland, will start the finals with a staggering 30% (nearly 60,000,000) of the poker chips available, his nearest rival being Eric Buchman from NY with approximately 35,000,000. One extraordinary finalist this year is Steven Begleiter, a former senior manager with Bear Sterns and now a private equity firm consultant.