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Andrew Christoforou was finally involved in a notable and and it ended with him doubling up through Kakwan Lau. This leaves him in 10th spot. The hand was odd because both players revealed their hands on the turn despite Christoforou still having 320K chips behind. The floor and both players agreed to treat the situation as an "all in" and the hand played out, Lau was penalised one and for prematurely revealing his cards.
It's been a good level for Will Kassouf, he has now moved into third but still a long way behind chip leader Michael Ruane with Cliff Josephy (the only previous bracelet holder left) in between the two. So far Kassouf has had the clock called on him at least twice.
Tom Marchese is on an upward trend, now lying in 6th spot while James Obst is heading in the opposite direction, down from a healthy position overnight to 19th of the 22. One of the player below the Aussie is Matt Moss who seems to have had no luck at all so far on Day 7.
We're down to the final 2 tables with 18 players left
22. Jeff Hakim. The Lebanese player had been quite quiet but went out wiith a bang. After having a 3-bet called by Fernando Pons pre-flop, both players checked a flop of AA8 with 2 hearts. The 5 of diamonds on the turn, Pons bet half pot, Hakim called. The Jack of hearts completed the board, Pons made a large bet, Hakim moved all in for not much more and was quickly called. Hakim showed trip aces which was not good enough as Pons had KQ of hearts for the nut flush.
21. Matthew Moss. The British contingent dropped to 2 as Moss, who had never threatend the upper echelons of the chip counts on Day 7 went out. He was a victim of Jared Bleznick's pocket aces when an open ended straight draw never got there. To complete a theme I had going all Series, Moss was the last chance for an alliteratively named player to win the ME.
20. Kakwat Lau. The final Asian player had been one of the big stacks at one point before tangling with Andrew Christoforou but had dribbled down to 10BB. He shoved from the cutoff with pocket 2s and was acccomodated by Vojtech Ruzicka who had A10. Two more tens on the flop were more than enough for Ruzicka to add all Lau's chips to his and to eliminate Lau.
19. Thomas Miller. In TM v TM action, Miller was eliminated just before the dinner break. Pons opened for 700K, Miller went over the top all in for 5.8m from the Small Blind with KJ and Tom Marchese 4-bet with AQ, Pons getting out of the way. Miller went ahead on a King-high flop but an Ace on the turn flipped things around and the river was a blank.
Dinner Break has now been taken with the redraw to two tables and we'll come back for Level 34, 200K/400K with a 50K ante
Approximate chip counts
Main Table
Seat 1: William Kassouf 22.6m
Seat 2: Michael Niwinski 8.9m
Seat 3: John Cynn 11.2m
Seat 4: Andrew Christoforou 8.1m
Seat 5: Joshua Weiss 11m
Seat 6: Jerry Wong 22.4m
Seat 7: Griffin Benger 17.4m
Seat 8: Fernando Pons 27.5m
Seat 9: Gordon Vayo 6.5m Table 2
Seat 1: Vojtech Ruzicka 30.7m
Seat 2: Michael Ruane 35.1m
Seat 3: James Obst 5.1m
Seat 4: Mike Shin 21.2m
Seat 5: Qui Nguyen 17.8m
Seat 6: Tom Marchese 19.2m
Seat 7: Jared Bleznick 6.8m
Seat 8: Kenny Hallaert 25.7m
Seat 9: Cliff Josephy 41.6m
As for the second half, not so good
Half a dozen hands after the dinner break
18. Andrew Christoforou. With blinds at 200K/400K, Gordon Vayo opens top 900K. Will Kassouf calls and the action get to Christoforou who shoves his last 7m. Vayo re-shoves 13m and Kassouf realises he is not in a good spot an folds. The Brit has A8 suited but Vayo has pocket aces. The flop comes Q64 and with a turn of a K that's it for Christoforou before the river is even dealt. He takes home $338K
17. Seven hands later we lose the final GB player, Will Kassouf. In a hand full of verbals (there's a surprise) Griffin Benger raised. Kassouf 3-bet, Benger countered with a 4-bet before after a long dwellage Kassouf 5-bet shoved. Benger quickly called and he too had the aces, Kassouf the Kings. The flop comes out 10-high and neither the turn and river help Kassouf and the 27million pot slides over to the Canadian. No Brit at the final table again this year.
16. On the other table, Jared Bleznick was knocked out by Kenny Hallaert. Bleznick's K10 took the lead on the flop with a 10 but the Belgian's AJ went back in front as a Jack came on the turn.
14. Tom Marchese. Both Marchese and Qui Nguyen had clubs - Marchese the J10 and Nguyen the AK. You can probably guess what happened next - a back door flush comes, Marchese shoves and it probably took Nguyen less than a millisecond to call. Result - he goes over 100 BB and Marchese departs stage left.
13. James Obst had started the day in great shape but had been drifting downwards until here when he had about 11BB left. He shoved with pocket fives but Nguyen used some of his newly increased stack to call when he found pocket tens. The board was all low, Obst did have a straight draw on the river but it never materialised and the Aussie leaves with his 8th cash of the series
12. It took only five more ands before the one-man demolition man Qui Nguyen to do it again. He had to think a little about this one though. It was the last hand before a break and a three-man hand between Vojtech Ruzicka, Mike Shin and Nguyen. Shin 4-bet jammed for 14m, and it took several minutes for Nguyen to call, and a second or two for Ruzicka to fold. Shin had AK, Nguyen pocket Queens and Shin never found any card to help him, in fact to emphaise the win, Nguyen setted up on the river.
Hand-for-hand play started at 11 players after the organisers deemed that too much stalling was going on, and they also removed the option for players to call the clock, the floor would do that if necessary.
11th place was worth $650K and with the November Nine so close it was getting very tense.
11. Gordon Vayo had been picking up a number of small and medium sized pots to the point where he was probably second in chips to Nguyen. John Cynn on the other hand hadn't won a hand in a while. He was down to 4m chips and pushed them all over the line from middle position, Vayo called from the Big Blind. To increase the tension they had to wait for the action on the other table to complete before turning their hands over, Cynn had two live cards with Q10 against Vayo's KJ. The flop left us more or less where we were - KQ3 gave both players a pair but Vayo still in front. Neither an Ace on the turn or a 6 on the river was any help and Cynn was out of there.
15. Michael Niwinski
I'll try and find out the details later
Seat 1: Joshua Weiss - 3,700,000 (7 bb)
Seat 2: Griffin Benger - 38,825,000 (77 bb)
Seat 3: Vojtech Ruzicka - 27,750,000 (55 bb)
Seat 4: Fernando Pons - 9,000,000 (18 bb)
Seat 5: Qui Nguyen - 68,125,000 (136 bb)
Seat 6: Cliff Josephy - 61,000,000 (122 bb)
Seat 7: Michael Ruane - 30,200,000 (60 bb)
Seat 8: Gordon Vayo - 47,225,000 (94 bb)
Seat 9: Kenny Hallaert - 39,725,000 (80 bb)
Seat 10: Jerry Wong - 11,025,000 (22 bb)
Basiclly they're just waiting for Weiss to get a hand and shove and see how it falls. There has been one hand that got played out where Josephy won a few off Benger but it's been mostly one raise taking it. Weiss now down to 2.2m so it shouldn't be long now before he doubles up or goes home. 10th place gets $650K and all the are guaranteed seven figure scores so this not only the November Nine bubble but a $350K ladder spot.
He needs some of my Barnacle skills.
The board was J-7-3-5-4.
Weiss showed first - Ace-8
Gordon Vayo showed Q-7 for a pair of sevens which was good enough to KO Weiss and set the November Nine
Michael Ruane tables J-5 for two pair to wn the pot.
So that's it, that's all the action until the end of October.
I'll return later for a review of the nine players who have made the biggest FT of them all.
excellent work again fchd. thank you.
limited knowledge lol it was easy to understand.
What an amazing job you have done you must be so proud of yourself.
Thank you so very much for all your hard work
Nannypat66
Excellent work, thanks FCHD.
Big +1, especially the recognition bit, providing that is ok with all the moaning minnies who kicked off last time this was suggested.
With my football watching season starting a week on Saturday (at Crowland United), I'll be glad of a couple of weeks to recharge my batteries.
I was going to research the November Nine, but the info released by the WSOP themselves does the job more than adequately in their press release and hope that cut and pasting large amounts attributed to WSOP.com is OK. If anyone at Sky Poker has a problem with copyright issues, feel free to delete as much as you feel you need.
So without any further ado, in chip order:
1. Cliff Josephy 74.6m chips. With 2 bracelets, the only bracelet holder in the November Nine. He has 17 previous WSOP cashes for $810538
Cliff Josephy is undoubtedly one of the most well-known - and most accomplished - players in the 2016 November Nine. He first made a name for himself in online poker, and he has since become successful in live poker as well. He already has two bracelets, most recently from a shootout victory in 2013.
2. Qui Nguyen 67.9m chips. One solitary previous WSOP cash for $9029
Qui Nguyen has less experience in high-stakes tournament poker than many of his November Nine competitors. He has just over $50,000 in recorded career earnings, and the largest cash of his career - his only previous WSOP cash - is for $9,029. That's not even enough for the buy-in in this event. But now he's one of the big stacks heading into November, and he's guaranteed a payout of at least $1,000,000
3. Gordon Vayo 49.4m chips. 26 previous WSOP cashes for $608136
This is Gordon Vayo's third career WSOP final table. His best performance so far is a runner-up finish in a $3,000 No-Limit Hold'em Six-Max event two years ago. He now has a chance to improve on that and earn his first bracelet in the biggest tournament of the year.
4. Kenny Hallaert 43.3m chips 22 previous WSOP cashes for $367855
Kenny Hallaert already has over $1.3 million in career earnings. His best WSOP performance to date was a fifth-place finish in the 2015 Colossus. Hallaert is also only the second Belgian to make the November Nine. A year ago, Pierre Neuville became the first. Now Belgians have made the final table in back-to-back years.
5. Michael Ruane 31.6m chips. 3 previous WSOP cashes for $24438
Compared to some of his competitors, Michael Ruane is fairly inexperienced at tournament poker. He has only five recorded tournament cashes – three in WSOP events. His largest recorded score is $17,244. But now he’s guaranteed a payout of at least $1 million for his Main Event performance, and he has the opportunity to win the most prestigious prize in poker.
6. Vojtech Ruzcka 27.3m chips. 17 previous WSOP cashes for $138585
Vojtech Ruzicka has over $1,000,000 in career earnings, mostly on the European tournament circuit. His best WSOP finish to date is a final-table performance in last year's bounty event for $42,228. Ruzicka is the first Czech November Niner since Martin Staszko in 2011.
7. Griffin Benger 26.1m chips. 13 previous WSOP cahes for $231201
Griffin Benger is one of the world's most accomplished poker players. In fact, he's one of the world's most accomplished games players. He was a highly-ranked video game player, at one point winning the Counterstrike World Championships. He was also formerly the #1 ranked online poker player in the world. He's also no stranger to running deep in the Main Event, having finished 90th two years ago.
8. Jerry Wong 10.2m chips. 19 previoys WSOP cashes for $127343
Jerry Wong has quite a bit of tournament experience. He has over $1.3 million in recorded earnings. At the WSOP he has 19 cashes to his name. However, this will be his first WSOP final table. Despite his success, he's already guaranteed the biggest payout of his career.
9. Fernando Pons 6.2m chips. No previous WSOP cashes
This is Fernando Pons's first WSOP cash. In fact, it's his first WSOP event, and this is first time time in Vegas. Pons is mostly an online player; he has only two live tournament cashes on record. But his first WSOP experience is a memorable one, and he'll be back in Vegas again in a few months for the final table.
All biographical information courtesy of wsop.com
So that's it for three months. Well done to all those who won bracelets, made final tables, cashed, or just basically enjoyed themselves. A record year for the WSOP, but not really comparing apples to apples when there is different numbers of events, buy in levels and re-entries. Following the Sky qualifiers has been brilliant, even if it was somewhat hamstrung by the Data Protection provisions this year. The reports and videos from Tikay and Neil have been brilliant, may this whole Sky Poker/WSOP experience be repeated next year.
See you at the end of October!