by Dan Michalski, Nov 10, 2014 | 1:32 pm

The latest incarnation of the November Nine gets underway in a few hours, and as per usual there’ll be talk of poker’s “young guns” dominating the big-money prize spots. The old man at the table this year is Bruno Politano, topping out the field chronologically at the crotchety age of 32.

However, while all the remaining players this year may be young, they’re not exactly kids … at least not the way they were in 2010 or 2011.

Maybe it’s just semantics, but what’s different this year is the absence of any player who’s already embarked on a fifth decade of life (a requirement to be in the WSOP Poker Hall of Fame, fwiw) thereby skewing the average. Also 2014’s population of young non-rookies makes for the first year where all competitors at the final table are of an age more comparable to what you’d see in more traditional professional sports.

Here’s a look at how the average age at the WSOP main event final table has changed over the years in the November Nine era. Additional data is below.

November Nine Average Ages
2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014
27	45	25	26	21	26	30
22	29	24	49	24	32	24
31	47	24	26	24	28	31
26	34	22	26	26	23	29
23	21	29	21	27	38	22
53	51	25	22	30	25	27
28	33	24	22	32	36	30
38	25	26	26	43	27	27
39	26	37	35	56	29	32
31.89	34.56	26.22	28.11	31.44	29.33	28.00