Beating almost everyone\’s expectations, the November Nine was established before 11pm Wednesday night with chip leader Darvin Moon cracked Jordan Smith\’s aces, flopping a set of eights. Here\’s how the final table is scheduled to be seated when the players return on November 7th to the Penn and Teller Theater at the Rio:
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: Joe Cada – 13,215,000
Seat 8: Antoine Saout – 9,500,000
Seat 9: Jeff Shulman – 19,580,000
As some Twittered earlier this morning, the appearance of Phil Ivey at the final table caused much joy to the WSOP staff, ESPN, and the poker forum community. You\’ve got the chip leader a good ol\’ boy from Maryland who\’s involved in the most dangerous job in the US (logging), meaning those who wonder what happens if someone in the November Nine passes away or is incapacitated may have their wish come true. You have Begleiter, a former executive at Bear Stearns, You\’ve got two European players (Akenhead and Saout), you\’ve got the lightning rod for the \”bad for poker\” audience in Shulman, who made statements that he would throw away the bracelet if he won, criticizing the WSOP\’s stance on exclusivity in poker reporting. These stories and many others will be played out in the coming days, and Pokerati will be there to sift through them all, starting this afternoon on The Poker Beat over at www.pokerroad.com.