ESPN Poker Blog

Posted by Andrew Feldman

On the final day of action until Nov. 9, 18 players need to be eliminated before we all can go home. How long will it take? Given that in the past three years, Day 7 has wrapped up at 3 or 4 a.m., it might be a long night.

Sunday was a day of failure for poker's biggest stars, but the start of something special for 27 other players. Unfortunately, there will not be a household name at the final table this year. Having a Phil Hellmuth- or Mike Matusow-type superstar would have been great for the game, but now, with so many of these players having had minimal success in major poker tournaments, new stories will be told and four months of hype will make each of these nine players ones to remember. Hellmuth was eliminated 45th, while Matusow went out 30th when his A-J couldn't prevent Paul Snead from hitting one of his three outs with A-9.

Here is a look at the chip counts heading into the final day, with an average stack of $5.07 million:

Dennis Phillips ($11.91 million)
Craig Marquis ($11.46 million)
Tiffany Michelle ($9,755,000)
Peter Eastgate ($9,325,000)
Kelly Kim ($8.84 million)
David Rheem ($8.28 million)
Gert Andersen ($6.74 million)
Paul Snead ($6.6 million)
Chris Klodnicki ($6,245,000)
Judet Toni Cristian ($5 million)
Ivan Demidov ($4,965,000)
Nicholas Sliwinski ($4,925,000)
Joe Bishop ($4,855,000)
Brandon Cantu ($4.74 million)
Darus Suharto ($4.51 million)
Scott Montgomery ($4.32 million)
Owen Crowe ($3.8 million)
Albert Kim ($3,675,000)
Ylon Schwartz ($3,655,000)
Jason Riesenberg ($3,405,000)
Anthony Schere ($2,385,000)
Dean Hamrick ($2,375,000)
Tim Loecke ($2.28 million)
Aaron Gordon ($1.79 million)
Niklas Flisberg ($1.33 million)
Phi Nguyen ($1.02 million)
Michael Carroll ($1,015,000)

There are some interesting stories among this group, perhaps none more interesting than that of David "Chino" Rheem. Rheem has been around the poker world for years, but his relationship with the Mizrachi brothers (Mike, Robert and Eric) has allowed him to soak in more knowledge from some of the game's most popular players. He has a large rooting section and seems to be a fan favorite at this point.

Also in the hunt is Tiffany Michelle, whom you can read more about in Gary Wise's column. Michelle is another friend of the media, since up until the start of the main event she was doing on-camera work for PokerNews.com. She's excited to be in this spot, and it will be great for the poker world if she can be one of the November Nine. More than 200 women entered the main event, and considering that a woman hasn't made it to the final table since 1995 (Barbara Enright), many are rooting for Michelle to break that streak.

After Matusow was eliminated, Phi Nguyen and Brandon Cantu were the only bracelet winners left in the field. Cantu was the chip leader for most of Day 6, but he fell back to the middle of the pack during a disastrous hand in which he bluffed off more than $6 million. The beneficiary, Craig Marquis, joined me on the Poker Edge podcast and talked about how the 23-year-old has risen to the top of the chip counts thanks to the support of his poker-playing friends. Marquis seemed composed and is aware that nearly all the chip leaders have busted the day after. Entering Day 6, Mark Ketteringham was the chip leader, and he was eliminated by the dinner beak. Marquis is ready to go.

During his postelimination interview, Johnny Chan picked Sliwinski to win the entire thing. Never having played with Sliwinski before, Chan picked him with more than 180 players left, and in return, Sliwinski has not disappointed.

"I'm pumped," Sliwinski said prior to play on Day 7, wearing multiple Full Tilt logos. He was in a downward spiral following the dinner beak but managed to regain chips late in the day to put him in 12th place entering play.

About the final 27

• Even though you might not recognize the names above, two-thirds of the field consider themselves professional poker players. Besides poker players, we have a salesman (Bishop), a controller (Andersen), a consultant (Flisberg), students (Marquis and Gordon), a director of sales (Loecke), an actress (Michelle), a commercial account manager (Phillips) and a CPA (Snead, although he had been playing professionally the past two years prior to this WSOP).

• There are players from the United States (19), Canada (Suharto, Montgomery), Denmark (Eastgate, Andersen), England (Gordon), Romania (Cristian), Russia (Demidov) and Sweden (Flisberg).

• The youngest player is 21 (Gordon), while the oldest player is 53 (Phillips).

• The short stack, Carroll, considers himself "one of the best poker players nobody has ever heard of."

• Three players remain of Korean decent: Albert Kim, David Rheem and Kelly Kim.

• Besides Nguyen and Cantu, Kim has the most impressive poker tournament history. Kim has $305,966 in tournament winnings since 2003 and three WSOP cashes.

The money:

Here's a look at the payout schedule for those who will be eliminated today: 10-12: $591,869
13-15: $463,201
16-18: $334,534
19-27: $257,334

Small blinds:
Steve Dannenmann, the 2005 main event runner-up, and Paul Snead are good friends. Dannenmann stood at the rail cheering on Snead for the majority of the last level on Day 6. … No blow up upon elimination from Matusow or Hellmuth. Both of them were upset, but nothing over the top. … Hellmuth said his actions late on Day 5 were unacceptable. "I got out of hand," he said. "And the commissioner put me on notice!" … Cantu is making his first trip to the ESPN feature table today. … Spectators sprinted to get to the rails to cheer on their friends and family after they were let in. You have to feel bad for those family members who didn't get good spots to see their loved ones. … Jeffrey Pollack gave the players a pep talk this morning before play began. … Play resumes with one hour and 28 minutes in Level 28. … Everyone was waiting for the play to slow down, but it really never did until after the dinner break. Even at that point, players still were being surprisingly aggressive.