Well that’s all she wrote. It took about an hour and a half, far less than last year, but we have our 2010 WSOP ME champion, Jonathan Duhamel. After picking away at Racener’s stack for the better part of an hour, Racener was finally forced to go all in with Kd8d. That, however, couldn’t beat Duhamel’s AJo. We know who the winners and losers are from this heads up match, but a special edition of winners, losers, and coinflips for you to look at the others:

Winners

• Joesph Cheong – He flamed out hardcore on Saturday, but was seen in the ESPN3 studio giving commentary in the tail-end of heads up. For the way he went out, I’d have no problem with him just sitting in the stands, so major props to him for coming back to help out.
• Erik Seidel and Dan Harrington – Both gave great speeches in their own ways. Their Hall of Fame inductions are well deserved.
• Jonathan Duhamel’s Fans – It makes very little sense for the Les Habs fans to chant “Ole!” but they are the most electric fans and had been for most of the final table matchup.

Coinflips

• Jack Effel – He was a little less insane today (and yes I acknowledge his job is to keep the crowd interested), but he was still insane. (Maybe that was in the job description)
• The media – There was a lot of “I don’t want to be here” attitude going around, myself included at times. If you can’t do 2 days, how do you do 6 weeks?

Losers

• Twitter – For imposing a twitter cap that took effect at the exact same time as the last hand of the main event. Guess all those hand updates I was doing screwed me where it counted.
• The interest added to the prize pool – Blame the economy all you want, but why even bother putting the prize pool into T-bills when you make a whopping $450 in the process. Hell, I’m pretty sure no one would care if Harrah’s pocketed that.

There is some pomp and circumstance before the cards get back in the air.

• Ty Stewart gave an overdue introduction to the 2006 Player of the Year, Jeff Madsen. He couldn’t help but point out Madsen’s rap albums and…interesting thoughts on September 11th.
• Stewart then introduced 2010 Player of the Year Frank Kasella, something thankfully they didn’t try doing on Saturday. Kasella received a check for $30,000.
• Nolan Dalla was then called up to induct Dan Harrington into the Hall of Fame. He had a few jokes that fell flat, but whatever.
• Dan Harrington says his greatest accomplishments were the Harrington on Hold’em books, thanking Bill Robertie and 2+2 for the opportunity. I don’t think we could argue about that.
• Doyle Brunson is called up to induct Erik Seidel into the Hall of Fame. He has mentioned Seidel is more recognized for his part in Rounders than his abilities as a player.
• Erik Seidel is actually being quite funny in his speech. One of the better ones was when he said “one great perk of the Hall of Fame is that Harrah’s pays for all the Hall of Famer’s WSOP buy-ins.” Ty Stewart nearly had a stroke.

We are over a half hour late, but things are finally getting underway. Check @Mark_Gahagan for updates.

November 9:

• As the bust outs started coming quickly last night the guys over at PokerListings were there to get the exit interviews for the last 3 to get eliminated. First was Michael Mizrachi, who was followed not to soon by Fillipio Candio. And finally the interview of Joseph Cheong shortly after his big hand. (PokerListings)

• Cheong Light Savings was the last Tao of Pokerati Podcast to be published last night before the crew went to sleep party throughout the night. Dr. Pauly gives us a brief glimpse into the happenings on Monday when the final 2 come back to play for the Bracelet and $8.9 million. (Tao of Poker)

• Did Joseph simply just have a major blowup or was he just on the next level of thinking and got caught? Short-Stack Shamus from Hard-Boiled Poker takes a look at hand #212 along with a few other dramatic hands from the night. (Hard-Boiled Poker)

• Andrew Feldman and Lance Bradley get together shortly after play has concluded for the day to recap the day. The Poker Edge podcast is a bit long but if you want to hear every players elimination interview along with some insight from the guys then it is definitely a must listen. (Poker Edge Podcast)

Non-Novemeber 9:

• Tatjana Pasalic of Party Poker sits down with the winner from WPT Amneville, Sam El Sayed. (Party Poker Blog)

The Battle of the Jon’s (Johnathan Duhamel and Jon Racener) will commence Monday night at 11:00 EST.

We are all done for the day, with Cheong, Candio, and Mizrachi all going out within the last two and a half hours. Here’s the end of day overview:

Winners

• Jonathan Duhamel (2-0-3): Another level, another player given a world of hurt by Duhamel. A double up from the chip leader with QQ gives Duhamel 180m. Its his main event to win…or lose.
• John Racener (0-2-3): Patience is a virtue. And for John Racener, watching Cheong punt his stack was probably the best thing that ever could have happened to him. He walks into heads up at least a 6:1 dog, so he’ll have his work cut out for him.

Coinflip

• Our feelings about killing Jack Effel whenever he was over-enthusiastic: We know its wrong, and its probably because we are all tired, but at times it felt that it would be so, so satisfying.

Losers

• Michael Mizrachi (4-1-0): The way this ended was almost sad. Grinder’s play in the last two hours was really disappointing, and he was looking frustrated toward the end. While he got it all-in in what would normally be a decent spot, Duhamel’s crafty plan with his aces proved too much. We all expected great things out of Mizrachi, a combination of bad luck and bad situations ultimately led to the Grinder’s demise. Congratulations are certainly in order for Michael Mizrachi’s 5th place finish, the Redemption of the Grinder is certainly complete.
• Filippo Candio (0-1-4): Candio’s end was even weaker. After playing almost no hands for 2 hours, he shoved KQdd against Joesph Cheong, who called with A3cc. An Ace on the flop put Cheong in command, and the blank on the turn sealed the deal. Candio’s lack of play may have been because he was caught bluffing a few times in a row. An amazing finish for the Italian though, 4th place, $3 million (or 2 euros) and a great run!
• Joseph Cheong (3-0-2): All I’m gonna say is A7 6-bets all in are not gonna be in Cheong’s arsenal ever again. He was on the losing end of the biggest pot in poker tournament history. He fought back to get to 17m, but couldnt quite close it out when Q-high lost to A-high. Congratulations on a 3rd place finish nonetheless!

Interesting Notes

• Bustouts came fast and furious at the beginning of level 40, players with under 30m in chips were feeling the pinch and had to take a stand. Unfortunately, the Cheong-Duhamel hurricane could not be stopped, claiming Mizrachi and Candio within 2 hands. Then the Duhamel hurricane became stronger and knocked Cheong off the face of the earth…eventually.
• Caffeine is overrated. Especially when you have a bunch of all ins at the end.

On behalf of Pokerati, I hope you’ve enjoyed our coverage of the final table up until this point. We’ll be covering some other random stuff in the lead up to heads up, as well as the heads up coverage itself.

November 9:

• Photos can tell a story better than words can, and the guys over at Greasie Wheels are doing a great job with the official WSOP photo blog. (WSOP Photo Blog)

• The guys over at Wicked Chops feel that John Dolan was a disappointment and try to cheer everyone up with some Cheech and Chong. (Wicker Chops)

• Couple more Tao of Pokerati podcast have hit the air, the November 9 WSOPharmie Report has arrived and a quieter version titled Shhhhh! is here.

• When did the first chopped pot happen on the final table? Find out via the next Bluff update. (Bluff)

• Still have not been able to find a video of the bust-out interview for John Dolan, but the staff over at PokerNewsDaily have a nice writeup and it seems that Dolan was just a jovial as Senti as he was heading out to collect his money. (PokerNewsDaily)

We are trying to power through this, look toward @Pokerati and @Mark_Gahagan for updates.

Winners

• Joseph Cheong (2-0-2): He seems to be staying above the fray as of right now, and has the chip lead after Grinder’s failed attempt to knock out John Racener. In fact, he’s the first player to jump the 70 million chip mark, something I thought I would have been saying about Grinder.

Coinflip

• Filippo Candio (0-1-3): Amazingly there hasn’t been much from Filippo this level. And for some reason, I’m ok with that. The lack of weird bluffs is…umm…keeping me sane at this hour. He’s getting a little short, but perhaps waiting can lead to good things.
• Jonathan Duhamel (2-0-2): Duhamel eliminated John Dolan when his pocket fours held up against Dolan’s Q5dd. This helped make him a presumptive table of 3 contender. HOWEVER, he has a habit of dumping chips, and he proceeded to lose in a bad beat AK < AQ. Then he calls his tournament life with A9 and beats Mizrachi’s 33. Wild ride to say the least.
• John Racener (0-2-2): He got it in good against Grinder with AKo and clinched it with a King on the turn. Much better off now and is putting people like the Grinder to the test. However, later in the level, he definitely quieted down.

Losers

• John Dolan (1-3-0): Some players I will elevate to coinflip status depending on how they finished, Senti was a resuck situation. Dolan’s was a….bad coinflip. Congratulations on the 6th place finish and in fairness he didnt want a call, but he got it and the board gobbled up a cold-decked player. Still, the run was a little lackluster at the end, which was unfortunate for him.
• Michael Mizrachi (4-0-0): Mizrachi’s call of John Racener’s all-in was pretty bad, A8dd wasn’t gonna hold up to AK. As such, he splurged a mountain of chips. He then lost half his stack to Duhamel in a all-in shove with 33. He, and this is the only way I can describe it, has blown up. Two big mistakes cost him over 60% of his stack from the beginning of the level. Regardless of what he did to chip up from his low of 28m, he was the definitely loser of this level.

Interesting Notes

• Grinder has done something I only thought people like me were capable of, blow a decent stack on two questionable all in plays.
• Racener is back in the mix of things, but his fans appear to be MIA.
• Jack Effel seems to get more insane with more time at the mike, maybe its his version of crack?
• Some (weak!) media have already left the building. I’m gonna do my best to stick around.

November 9:

• The dinner break gave the spectators a chance to booze it up and our very own Dr. Pauly is writing about it. It is a Friday night in Vegas and all. (Tao Of Poker)

• The next two episodes of the special November 9 Tao of Pokerati are now available: The Dinner Break: Sustenance and Smoke and Mezzanine Menagerie.

• Two players have been eliminated since coming back from the dinner break. The first one to sent to the rail was Jason Senti followed by Jonathan Duhamel. You can catch their bust hands at poker listings along with their elimination interviews for Jason Senti, the Duhamel interview will be up shortly. (PokerListings)

• Bluff Magazine is on top of the numbers, this time you can find out how many players have moved all in since the dinner break. (Bluff)

Non-November 9:

• As earlier reported the WPT Amneville was down to the final 3 players. They have since then crowned their winner, with Sam El Sayed taking the money and the title. You can read up on the final hand along with getting a picture of the winner at the Party Poker Blog.

Winners

• Dan Michalski (0-1-0): He paid for a rookie reporter’s meal. The act of kindness is noted here.
• Michael Mizrachi (3-0-0): I swear I’m not pulling for Mizrachi and this is not a bias, but he is owning that hard right now. He finally exorcised the Candio demon by 4-betting Candio after he got three bet again. That, and he’s crossed the 60 million chip mark, something not seen since the beginning of the day with Duhamel.
• Jonathan Duhamel (1-0-2): After spending some time with the plebes, he had the chip lead for a little bit and remains on the high end of the pack.
• Joseph Cheong (1-0-2): Cheong has this habit of through some sort of mind-reading find out I’m gonna drop him to the loser column, then he does something amazing. His elimination of Jason Senti puts back in good position.

Coinflip

• Filippo Candio (0-1-2): Just as much as I don’t mean to champion Mizrachi, I don’t mean to throw Candio under the bus. His play is getting more and more spastic, and he’s bluffing way too much. Still, in spite of that reputation, he’s still in the hunt.
• Jason Senti (2-0-1): He had 9 lives. He could not be killed. Unfortunately, Joesph Cheong ended that thought with a rivered straight. Senti would have been on the loser column if he had still be in the tournament at this point, but I’m not gonna lie, his fans have been amongst the most vocal, and he was a class act. He did the best he could rocking the short stack for over 9 hours. Congrats on the 7th place finish Jason!

Losers

• John Dolan (1-2-0): Not only should anyone under 20BBs be automatically in this zone, but I’m starting to forget Dolan is even there. Do something! (if you have cards or think you can bluff of course)
• John Racener (0-1-2): Gotta drop you for not doing much other than ship chips off to other players.
• Jack Effel:  CAN YOU NOW STOP SAYING “FEAR THE STACHE”?!

Interesting Notes

• The play has gotten more involved after the dinner break, and with three people in the 20m range going into 500k/1m blinds, expect some fireworks in the next level.
• Senti’s river loss is probably giving ESPN orgasms. There have been so many good TV hands its unreal.

November 9:

• The guys over at PokerLisitings caught up with Matthew Jarvis after getting eliminated from the Main Event. He seemed to be taking things well. (PokerListings)

• Stalking Sasquatch around the Rio for 10 mins with Dr. Pauly, and I am sure you might find a new podcast towards the end of the dinner break. (Tao Of Poker)

• Players are coming back from their 90-minute dinner break at 400/800/100k. Follow live updates at WSOP.com

Non-November 9:

• The WPT also has a final table today in Amneville, France. They are currently down to three players that are trying to win 426,425 €  ($598,871.27) and an entry to the $25,000 WPT World Championship at Bellagio in May, 2011. (Party Poker Blog)

This is proving a work in progress, but I want to see how much I deem someone a winner, loser, or a coinflip, so after every name we’ll have a W-L-T record. I do this because it’ll be interesting to see how one’s record stacks up against how they actually finished. If they didn’t get selected, we’ll assume its a tie. Obviously if I deem someone other than the November Nine a place of triumph or doom, not gonna bother keeping score for them.

Winners

• Michael Mizrachi (2-0-0): Captured the chip lead after 4-betting Duhamel, he’s becoming a true menace to the table. The only player he can’t seem to figure out is Filippo Candio, but Candio has problems of his own.
• The crowd: The audience is finally starting to get excited. Might have something to do with more action, or it might have to do with the imbibing. Either way, no complaints here.
• Jonathan Duhamel (0-0-2): Holding his own, but he’s taken a bit of a beating from Grinder, almost didn’t put him in the winner column because of this.

Coinflip

• Joesph Cheong (1-0-1): He’s in a holding pattern, but in better shape than Senti at least.
• Jason Senti (2-0-0): Started to slip, then picked up chips from Racener, for the most part though in a holding pattern.
• John Racener (0-1-1): The clock was seriously starting to work against him. He’s been in a holding pattern for most of day, but got lucky with QQ and doubled up through Filipio Candio. He proceeded to lose a portion of that to Jason Senti later on in the hour. Right before the dinner break he got some chips off of Joesph Cheong, who as stated was rather quiet.

Losers

• Filipio Candio (0-0-2): Oops, he ran into Racener’s pocket queens, which saved a shortstack’s life at his expense. I would call it karma, but the bluff-show from the last level wasn’t worth that much. His one glimmer was (apparently) bluffing Grinder again when he over-shared 7-something preflop.
• John Dolan (1-1-0): He’s a “loser” here because he did nothing, and he’s not exactly in a position to do that. He needs to get something going soon, or the 500k/1M blind level is gonna hurt.
• Dan Michalski: For violating his own cheering policy. (left over from the last level, but I just saw this Tao of Pokerati podcast took place.)

Interesting Notes

• People in the media can be very, very touchy at time. Just saying.
• Also, there are patches on a couple players promoting a website that specializes in flipping real estate. Greatest irony of the day: One of those players is Michael Mizrachi.
• When you are trying to describe what is going on in the WSOP to people on the way to your hotel room during break…sometimes its hard. Someone thought Joe Cada was still in the Main Event (either that or I just know way too much).

November 9:

• A few new episodes of Tao of Pokerati have been posted. In N9 – Episode 3 Timtern sneaking in for the absent Dan and talk about Sasquatch. The N9 – Episode 4 has Dr. Pauly catching Dan up on what he missed by arriving late. Once again check out Dr. Pauly’s blog for the up to date happenings around the Penn and Teller theater. (Tao of Poker)

• Filippio Candio likes to celebrate when he wins a hand and the guys over at Wicked Chops (with the assistance of Jess Welman) have made a connection to Candio and Roberto Benigni. (Wicked Chops)

• For those that saw the hand unfold between Matthew Jarvis and Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi might have noticed that it was very similar to the hand that saw Chris Moneymaker eliminating Phil Ivey on the way to winning the Main Event in 2003. (YouTube)

• The staff over at Bluff Magazine is keeping the content coming in, this time providing some off the wall stats about the Final Table play. If you want to know when the first four-bet happened then check them out. (Bluff)

• The guys over at Pokerlistings caught up with Soi Nguyen after he was eliminated in 9th place. (PokerListings)

Non-November 9 Notes:

• The WSOP is not the only November 9 that started up today. The Partouche Poker Tour (PPT) also started back up today. Given their November 9 became the November 8 after Ali Tekintamgac was disqualified from the tournament when tournament official determined he had been getting signals from a fake media member tipping him of his opponents hands (Poker Nyhederne). The remaining 8 players played down to the final two today with Vanessa Selbst and Raphael Kroll coming back tomorrow to play for the title. You can watch a live feed tomorrow starting at  2pm local time (PPT).

Level 37 saw a huge hand lead into an Ace on the River(tm: Barry Greenstein), a change in the chip leader, and a crowd that is both definitely paying attention and definitely falling asleep.

Winners

• Michael Mizrachi: After quietly gaining chips over the previous two hours, Grinder exploded in a huge 30+M chip pot to take himself right into the higher end of the chip counts. The hand was crazy: AQ vs 99 all in pre flop against Matthew Jarvis. Flop: Q8Q, edge Grinder. Turn: 9, edge Jarvis. River: A, win for Grinder and one of the first times the crowd has been truly excited in hours.
• Jason Senti: He’s still hanging tough, but isn’t really moving one direction of the other, and the increased blinds could have made things even worse later in the evening. That said, his cheering section is starting to get into it. An ill-timed all in nearly proved the death of him, going all in with K7o only to be called by chip-leader Cheong with A9s. An Ad on the turn gave Cheong a pair, but Senti actually got more outs. The river gave him the flush and a huge lifeline.

Coinflip

• Joseph Cheong: I think taking the chip lead for most of the level would have made him a winner. Unfortunately, a late double-up of Jason Senti gives Cheong a mixed set of results for the level.
• Filippo Candio: The man has increased his stack, but the way he showed his bluff against the Grinder later in the level was a little…much.
• Jonathan Duhamel: A couple missteps in big pots has not nearly cost him the lead, but dropped him into the rest of the pack, a position he’s surely not used to.

Losers

• Harrah’s: The internet has been slower than molasses for the last two hours and there hasn’t been much in terms of fixing it. Makes for difficult reporting when it take 15 minutes to get updated chip counts.
• Matt Jarvis: Nothing makes your heart sink and race as much as his hand versus Grinder. Unfortunately, he couldn’t pull it off, and ends up the 8th place finisher.
• John Racener, John Dolan: They’ve been pretty quiet, no huge moves worth mentioning. And thus have nothing really to report. That said, they’ve both been slipping.

Chip Counts

1. Jonathan Duhamel – 42.8m
2. Joesph Cheong – 39.4m
3. Michael Mizrachi – 38.6m
4. Filippo Candio – 35.3m
5. John Dolan – 29.8m
6. Jason Senti – 20.6m
7. John Racener – 13.7m

November 9 Updates:

• Andrew Feldman of ESPN Poker has a Final Table Blog/Chat going on where you can chat and ask him questions as he live blogs the Final table. The live chat also has the twitter feed for all the players on the table along with some other pros, so should be a fun feed to follow throughout the day (ESPN Poker Live Blog).

• Bluff gives the low down on the patches. With FTP coming into the day with 7 sponsored players and only 3 allowed to wear the FTP logo everyone was speculating what they would do. They definitely came up with a creative answer (Bluff Magazine).

• Pauly over at Tao of Poker lets you know what happens during the break at the Main Event final table in his Semi-Live Blog (Tao of Poker).

Now in some non-November 9 News but definitely a good read:

• Amy Calistri and Tim Lavalli took a deeper look back in 2006 into where 2 million extra chips came after they noticed a discrepancy at the end of Day Seven of the Main Event. They take a look at possible staff error to even the possibility of cheating between staff and players. (AimlesslyChasingAmy)

Twitter link: @Mark_Gahagan

Bullet point posts are going to be the method of choice because I’m all for giving you all no-nosense content. Here’s the winners and losers of Level 36:

Winners

• Mizrachi/Dolan/Cheong: Both for chipping up and for being the winners of the “Who is gonna get patched?” lottery.
• Jason Senti: For his late double-up in the level that knocked out Soi Nguyen.

Coinflip

• Soi Nguyen: His ninth place bustout was a classic coinflip, but his AK couldn’t beat the QQ of Jason Senti (the Q on the flop probably didnt help). When asked how he felt, he said that “this was the best 4 months in his life” and “he was not worried about finishing in 9th.” Soi was the only “amateur” in the event, but he went through the interview like a pro.

Losers

• Matthew Jarvis: Grenaded most of his stack and has been languishing at the bottom of the chip count ever since.

Some Interesting things to Note

• Someone in Jason Senti’s crowd stripped down to his underwear, security only made him put his shirt back on.
• The press box is far less lively than the stage, but its great for getting work done.
• Dan still isn’t here, but the site hasn’t gone down in flames yet so we’re all good so far.

Hope to bring you more via twitter as we get Level 37 (300k/600k blinds, 75k ante) underway.

Twitter seems to be the primary medium that I am releasing information, so definitely check that out for up-to-date information (@Mark_Gahagan). Some thoughts after the first hour of play:

• The Mizrachi clan is definitely the loudest of the bunch, whenever he is in a pot the crowd goes nuts when he wins.
• Senti is an all-in machine, he’s shoved about 4 times and won without seeing every time.
• Showdowns are light, only 1 so far and it took a while for it to even happen, with Racener’s overpair beating Dolan’s top pair.
• The crowd, outside of the Mizrachi situations, are pretty quiet so far, not nearly as much excitement as the ESPN coverage would lead you to believe.
• For a while, I thought Matt Jarvis was going to be the first casualty of the day, he seemed on tilt after losing that big pot earlier to Joesph Cheong.

Break is coming soon, will definitely use that opportunity to take in some light, its way too dark in the press box.