Tomorrow afternoon the men who constitute the “November Nine” will reconvene at the Penn & Teller Theater inside the Rio All-Suites Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas to begin the work of determining poker’s next “World Champion.” The World Series of Poker Championship Event is the “holy grail” of anyone who has ever picked up two cards in Texas Hold’em and, as such, there is a great deal of attention (and will be from Sunday until a victor is crowned Tuesday) as to who will be the eventual champion. In the second part of this three-part series, we’ll look at how the players will line up and offer a bit of a scouting report on each player, giving perhaps some clues as to who will be the “last man standing.”
When the tournament resumes on Sunday, there will be 35:50 left in Level 35, with the blinds at 250,000/500,000 and a 75,000 ante. Here’s how they’ll come to the table:
Seat 1: Jerry Wong, 10,175,000 chips (8th place)
Wong has quietly made his way to this final table, but he’s going to have to catch fire if he is going to go deep in the tournament. He’s a very experienced tournament player with over $2.3 million in career earnings, counting the $1 million that he and the other “November Niners” have already received. Prior to this, his best cashes were a victory in 2008 in a preliminary event at the World Poker Finals at Foxwoods and a third-place finish at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Main Event in 2013 (a $750,000 payday). With the lack of ammunition – he has two big stacks in Gordon Vayo and Kenny Hallaert on his immediate right and Griffin Benger on his immediate left – he’s going to have to see some good cards quick or find the fortitude to push on those big stacks around him.
Seat 2: Griffin Benger, 26,175,000 (7th place)
It’s been a pretty good year for Benger. After being tapped to do the commentary for the Global Poker League, Benger has made an outstanding run at the WSOP Championship Event. The work he’s done with the GPL, Benger admits, was important in giving him some insight into how the top pros play and helping him to advance to this level. It seems to have worked well as Benger has been around the top of the leaderboard for most of the last couple of days.
Benger’s work has gone across both the live and online poker worlds and at a very successful level. As a live player, Benger has earned almost $3.4 million, including a High Roller win on the European Poker Tour stage in 2013 for a $562,343 windfall, and he’s cashed an astounding 1323 times online for over $6.5 million in earnings. To say that this isn’t Benger’s first rodeo would be an understatement and he should be considered a “dark horse” for those with a chance to win from those at the bottom of the leaderboard.
Seat 3: Vojtech Ruzicka, 27,300,000 (6th place)
Fans in the United States might not know much about Ruzicka, but he’s been a staple of the European circuit for the past six years. The first player from the Czech Republic to make the “November Nine” since Martin Staszko in 2011, Ruzicka has amassed over $2.2 million in career earnings. When you add in his online performance (150 recorded cashes) and his $2.3 million in winnings there (which include a runner-up finish in the 2011 World Championship of Online Poker Main Event at PokerStars), it is easy to see that Ruzicka has a wealth of talent jammed into a very silent package on the felt.
Seat 4: Fernando Pons, 6,150,000 (9th place)
If you’re looking for someone who is having a hell of a time with their ride to the “November Nine,” this year it is Fernando Pons. He’s also one of the less experienced players in the live game in the tournament, having only 10 cashes in his career that, prior to the million-dollar payout earlier this year, barely had earned him $14,000 ($14,091, to be exact). Pons is not going to have many chances at this table, stuck between Ruzicka and the big stacks on his left (Qui Nguyen and Cliff Josephy), so he better make the most of any shot he takes. You should figure that, if Pons could make the next cash level in eighth and get something for his return trip to the Rio, that he’d be happy with himself.
Seat 5: Qui Nguyen, 67,925,000 (2nd place)
At any other tournament, Nguyen’s chip stack would be a dominant force at the tables. As it is, Nguyen sits in second place when the tournament restarts on Sunday and, on his immediate left, will be the chip leader, Josephy. But Nguyen has shown a very astute knowledge of the game and its psychology, knowing when to spring an attack and when to glide and watch the proceedings. Those will be tools that will get him far in this event.
Prior to the 2016 WSOP Championship Event, Nguyen was a recreational player working the Vegas to Southern California area. His biggest cash prior to this was at the WSOP in 2009 (a 54th place finish in a $1500 No Limit Hold’em tournament) and in 2007 at a preliminary event on the Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic (for $8655). A player with the stack of Nguyen can’t be ignored, however, but it will be interesting to see if he directly attacks Josephy or is more apt to try to take down some of the smaller stacks trying to attack him from his right.
Seat 6: Cliff Josephy, 74,600,000 (1st place)
Josephy is arguably the most notable, most experienced and most likely contender to take down this year’s title, especially with the chip stack he has amassed. Josephy has been a part of the poker world, either online or live, since 2004, garnering accolades for his abilities in teaching others to play the game. Josephy has also made some nice coin as a “backer” for a stable of players, arguably making more from the staking of players than what he has officially earned in his tournament poker career ($3.6 million roughly).
Don’t think that “old man” doesn’t have game, though. Josephy just doesn’t make mistakes when the tournament is on the line and, as such, he is going to be very difficult to root out of the top slot in the tournament. If he continues the roll he’s enjoyed up to this point, it will be surprising to see if anyone can take him down.
Seat 7: Michael Ruane, 31,600,000 (5th place)
If there’s something that Ruane and the two men to his left, Gordon Vayo and Kenny Hallaert, have going for them, they all have chip stacks that will prevent Josephy and Nguyen from trying to mess with them too much. Of that trio, however, Ruane is the least experienced of the bunch with only five cashes prior to this year’s WSOP and four of those cashes having come in 2011 and 2012 at the Las Vegas event. In the middle of the pack, Ruane could be a huge spoiler for someone, however, especially if he can get some more ammunition under his belt. If that ammunition comes from either Vayo or Hallaert, then he could give them some headaches.
Seat 8: Gordon Vayo, 49,375,000 (3rd place)
Vayo is one of those players who has knocked around the tournament poker world for some time, just on the precipice of making a name for himself but coming up just short on many occasions. He’s been playing poker – and making a living for himself – since he was 17 and earned more money playing online than his parents did in their jobs. Vayo has also been active since the “November Nine” was determined, taking down a nice chunk of change ($587,120) in winning the Winstar Casino “The River Series” Main Event (a $2500 tournament) in Oklahoma back in September.
In his career, Vayo has earned slightly more than $2.5 million, but he’s looking for that championship that will establish him on the poker map. If he’s able to work his way around a very heavy end of the table (between Seat 6 through Seat 9, almost 200,000,000 chips are sitting, almost two-thirds of the chips in play) and increase his stack, Vayo has potential to be a force on the biggest stage in poker.
Seat 9: Kenny Hallaert, 43,325,000 (4th place)
Arguably one of the most liked players on the table, Hallaert has been around the block in the tournament poker world. He finished in fifth place in the “Colossus” event at last year’s WSOP and has earned more than $2.3 million in his career. Like Vayo, he is searching for his breakthrough victory and he would like nothing more than to beat his countryman Pierre Neuville’s seventh place finish from last year at the minimum.
Hallaert is a very patient player but he can also be a very tricky one. That combination makes him a contender, especially if he can attack the short stacks of Wong and Benger in front of him.
In our final segment tomorrow, we dust off the Crystal Ball and see just what the 2016 WSOP Championship Event has in store for the fans. Will there be surprises? Preliminary glances towards the Ball have said that…well, you’ll just have to come back tomorrow.
