In just a few hours, the nine men who will vie for the 2015 World Series of Poker Championship Event bracelet will take to the stage of the Penn and Teller Theater at the Rio All Suites Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. The 2015 “November Nine” – determined back in July from a field of 6420 players – have waited for more than four months for this moment and, for some, it will be the pinnacle of their poker career. But how will everything play out tonight? We’ve rolled out the Crystal Ball here at Poker News Daily, wiped off some of the dust and tuned it up (we thought the Crystal Ball was insane when it predicted Nebraska over Michigan State last night, but look what happened) to get a good idea of the action.
The gentlemen involved in the proceedings over the next three days – the nine men will play down to three tonight, then those three come back on Monday to play down to two players and, on Tuesday, heads up play will commence – all have received the ninth-place payday back in July, so they are going to be looking at adding some money to their pockets. They will do this in front of a huge throng live on the grounds in Las Vegas and with a “plausibly live” (30-minute delay) television audience watching over ESPN beginning at 8:30PM (all times are Eastern) tonight (Monday’s play starts at 8PM on ESPN2 and the finale on Tuesday airs at 9:30PM on ESPN). International viewers can find a way to watch the action through this guide provided by the WSOP.
Especially with all the players on the stage tonight, it promises to be a dramatic evening and, for some, a profitable one.
First off, here is how they will line up as to the table positions:
Seat 1: Zvi Stern, 29.8 million chips
Seat 2: Pierre Neuville, 21.075 million
Seat 3: Joshua Beckley, 11.8 million
Seat 4: Max Steinberg, 20.2 million
Seat 5: Thomas Cannuli, 12.25 million
Seat 6: Joe McKeehen, 63.1 million
Seat 7: Patrick Chan, 6.225 million
Seat 8: Federico Butteroni, 6.2 million
Seat 9: Neil Blumenfield, 22 million
The button will be on Cannuli when the action begins tonight and there is 57:36 remaining in Level 35 with the blinds set at 200K/400K and a 50K ante.
We might see some fireworks from the start as, with the button on Cannuli, both of the short stacks – Chan and Butteroni – are going to have to make big decisions. Butteroni will be under the gun on the very first hand and, considering that he will have to spend over a million in chips over the first nine hands, he might be forced into action early. Chan, who will be in the big blind for the first hand, is facing similar problems to Butteroni. Both players can’t afford to bleed many chips (the 1.05 million chips in blinds and antes per nine hands will eat up their stacks very quickly), so they will be coming out of the gates firing.
Unfortunately for the remainder of the table, the beneficiary if Chan or Butteroni make a misstep could be the chip leader McKeehen. He will be on the button when those two players are in the blinds (Chan in the small, Butteroni in the big) and, with his massive stack, can afford to push around the shorties. If he gets any type of cards when he’s on the button, he’s going to be putting pressure on them; I expect that, on Hand 11, McKeehen will take down Butteroni in ninth place and Chan soon afterwards in eighth.
Here’s where it starts to get interesting. By taking out those two players, McKeehen will move the more experienced players into position to play against him. Blumenfield, Stern and Neuville would be sitting on McKeehen’s immediate left (if Butteroni and Chan go out first) and they will provide some headaches for the chip leader. I see Blumenfield taking a good portion of Beckley’s chips (with Stern finishing him off in seventh) while Neuville takes down Steinberg in sixth place in what will be a huge race (both players aren’t going to get crazy unless both have big hands).
McKeehen will remain the chip leader with five players left, but the stacks will have tightened up somewhat. Blumenfield and Stern will have improved to around 30 million in chips and Neuville to 40 million, while Cannuli will go out in fifth after he challenges McKeehen to push McKeehen’s stack to around 80 million. With only one more elimination to go, I can see Neuville taking down Stern in fourth and everyone going home until Monday night.
Now facing his first serious challenges since July in this tournament, McKeehen – much like last year’s chip leader Jorryt van Hoof did during three-handed play – will lose the chip lead. Both Blumenfield and Neuville will silently whack away at his stack to bring him back to them, but it will be Neuville’s win over an all-in Blumenfield that will move the chip lead to Neuville. The play on Monday will take some time as none of the players are going to make an incorrect move, but it should be done by midnight (Eastern Time) at the latest.
Down to heads up on Tuesday night, the veteran Neuville will meticulously work the stack of McKeehen. He won’t pull out to a tremendous lead but, by about the four-hour mark of heads up play, the twosome will get the chips to the center with Neuville winning the hand and becoming the oldest World Champion since Johnny Moss in 1974 and officially the oldest Championship Event winner in WSOP history (Moss won his at 67; Neuville is 72).
Here’s the predicted order of finish:
1. Pierre Neuville
2. Joe McKeehen
3. Neil Blumenfield
4. Zvi Stern
5. Thomas Cannuli
6. Max Steinberg
7. Josh Beckley
8. Patrick Chan
9. Federico Butteroni
Will it happen like this? We’ll have to tune in tonight to ESPN to see how the process of determining poker’s next World Champion works out as the “November Nine” battle it out at the 2015 WSOP Championship Event.
