With a guaranteed pay-out of at least a million, the final table of the World Series of Poker is an alluring achievement, and as we went to press Tuesday morning the composition of the final table had just been decided.
The 27 players who started Day 7 were led by Czech Republic pro Vojtech Ruzicka holding a chip stack of 26,415,000, pursued by Michael Ruane on 24,565,000 and Cliff Josephy on 23,860,000.
There remained some tough bracleted opposition in the field, including James Obst and Valentin Vornicu…all with substantial chip counts, along with respected pros like Tom Marchese, Griffin Benger and former November Niner (he finished third back in 2009) Antoine Saout.
By the end of the third level of the day former chip leader Valentin Vornicu, Jeff Hakim, Thomas Miller, Matthew Moss, Antoine Saout, Adam Krach and Lau were all out.
Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy held the chip lead going into the dinner break, with just 18 players left, but soon after play resumed Ruane won a massive pot from Obst that put him in the lead as the action settled down for a while.
Reaching the last 18 is something of an achievement in itself in a main event, and this year it guaranteed the survivors a pay-out of $338,288 apiece.
UK player William Kassouf was eliminated at at 17 by Griffin Benger after some issues with talking too much which included the involvement of tournament director Jack Effel.
Jared Bleznick was next, falling at 16th to Kenny Hallaert, and he was followed to the exit by Michael Niwinski, busted at 15th by Gordon Vayo.
Vayo was by now doing rather well, chasing the chip lead, which had again reverted to Josephy and actually taking it from him for a brief period, but Josephy was having none of it and in the next few hands he zoomed into the lead again, holding a stack of over 51 million.
The little-known player Qui Nguyen then grabbed the limelight with two shock eliminations in rapid succession, taking out seasoned pro Tom Marchese and Australian ace James Obst in the next hand, with both players earning $427,930 for their 14th and 13th positions.
The railbirds had barely recovered from that episode when Mike Shin hit the skids at 12th for $427,930 after a confrontation with Nguyen and Vojtech Ruzicka.
When we went to press Tuesday morning John Cynn was the most vulnerable and likely to leave at eleventh with just 5,125,000 chips and a rampant Qui Nguyen holding the chip lead at 68,350,000, chased by Cliff Josephy on 64,525,000 and Gordon Vayo on 45,500,000.
UPDATE:
Cynn indeed fell, eliminated by Gordon Vayo at 11th, and he was followed by Josh Weiss, busted out at 10th by Michael Ruane.
That leaves the final table that will play down to a winner later this year as follows:
1. Cliff Josephy – 75,000,000
2. Qui Nguyen – 68,075,000
3. Gordon Vayo – 50,450,000
4. Kenny Hallaert – 43,325,000
5. Michael Ruane – 29,800,000
6. Vojtech Ruzicka – 27,450,000
7. Griffin Benger – 26,175,000
8. Jerry Wong – 10,325,000
9. Fernando Pons – 6,225,000