2011 WSOP November Nine is Set

2011 WSOP November Nine is Set

After two long grueling weeks of play at the 2011 WSOP Main Event, the final table of nine players is now set. Kicking off on July 5th, the $10,000 buy-in Main Event (the world's largest and most lucrative online poker tournament) ran until just nine players were left, at which point they pause the action until November when the champion is finally crowned.

In the 2011 WSOP Main Event 6,865 players all ponied up $10,000 to take their shot at being Main Event champion, hoping to write their name in poker's history book as well as take home over $8.7 million in cash for first place. Two weeks of play reduced that field to just the nine players below:

Seat 1: Matt Giannetti (24,750,000 chips)
Seat 2: Badih Bounahra (19,700,000 chips)
Seat 3: Eoghan O’Dea (33,925,000 chips)
Seat 4: Phil Collins (23,875,000 chips)
Seat 5: Anton Makiievskyi (13,825,000 chips)
Seat 6: Samuel Holden (12,375,000 chips)
Seat 7: Pius Heinz (16,425,000 chips)
Seat 8: Ben Lamb (20,875,000 chips)
Seat 9: Martin Staszko (40,175,000 chips)

The Rio casino in Las Vegas played host to all of the WSOP action, with the normal buzz of Slots machines and Roulette wheels replaced by dealers shouting out "All in and a call!" as the huge starting field for the Main Event slowly but surely fell away.

Czech poker pro Martin Staszko will take the chip lead to the final table, trying to win one for the older set (as 35 years of age he's far older than the last three Main Event champions, who were 24, 22, and 21 years of age) and become the first Czech player to take down poker's biggest prize.

The 2011 final table is also more international than in many years, with just three US players in the field -- Giannetti, Collins, and Lamb. Bounahra hails from Belize, O'Dea from Ireland, Makiievskyi from Ukraine, Holden from England, Heinz from German, and Staszko from the Czech Republic.