The November Nine was the name used to refer to the final nine contestants, or final table, at the
Main Event
In sports, a card lists the matches taking place in a title match combat-sport event. Cards include a main event match and the undercard listing the rest of the matches. The undercard may be divided into a midcard and a lower card, according to ...
of the
World Series of Poker
The World Series of Poker (WSOP) is a series of poker tournaments held annually in Paradise, Nevada and, since 2004, sponsored by Caesars Entertainment. It dates its origins to 1970, when Benny Binion invited seven of the best-known poker pla ...
(WSOP) from 2008 to 2016. The winner of the WSOP Main Event is considered to be the World Champion of Poker.
Prior to 2008, the entire Main Event was played without interruption. Starting in 2008, in an effort to build excitement in the WSOP and to increase ratings for the tape-delayed televised shows,
Harrah's Entertainment
Harrah's Entertainment (later named Caesars Entertainment Corporation, previously The Promus Companies) was an American casino and hotel company founded in Reno, Nevada, and based in Paradise, Nevada, that operated over 50 properties and seven go ...
and
ESPN
ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...
decided to delay the final table until shortly before its scheduled broadcast. The delay would allow ESPN to cover the rest of the tournament leading up to the final table without viewers knowing the winner in advance.
Due to the timing of U.S. presidential elections, the final tables for the 2012 and 2016 Main Events were held in October.
In 2017,
Poker Central
Poker Central is a website and service which focuses on poker news, events, live streaming and hosting poker content. It operates PokerGO an online paid subscription channel and streaming service which features multiple poker shows, cash games and ...
announced a television and digital media rights agreement with the WSOP and ESPN which returned the final table to the tail end of the rest of the tournament.
Reception and criticism
After the announcement was made to delay the final table, concerns arose as to how the delay would affect the tournament.
Ylon Schwartz
Ylon Schwartz (; born 1970) is a chess master and professional poker player from Brooklyn, New York, and a fourth-place finisher in the $10,000 World Championship No Limit Hold'em Main Event of the 2008 World Series of Poker (WSOP), played o ...
, a 2008 November Nine participant, criticized the four-month delay by saying, "It ruins the integrity of the tournament. The purity of old-time Las Vegas is gone. The antiquity and purity of the tournament have been liquidated into pure greed and capitalism." ESPN's Senior Director of Programming and Acquisition, Doug White, stated, "The movement of the final table has definitely helped in terms of creating buzz."
When the 2008 November Nine was broadcast "almost live," ESPN received criticism because the network showed the winner's name prior to the broadcast. Poker journalist Dan Skolovy wrote, "It turned out to be a difficult task to avoid hearing the results. Especially since... ESPN scrolled the winner on its sports ticker long before the broadcast aired."
Nonetheless, coverage of the 2008 final table garnered more than a 50 percent increase from the previous year in both the number of viewers and households that watched it. The broadcast later received an
Emmy Award
The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...
nomination for "Outstanding Live Event Turnaround."
Results
2008
Original field: 6,844
Total prize pool: $64,431,779
Final table minimum prize: $900,670
Final table maximum prize: $9,152,416
Final table total prize pool: $32,633,446
Reference:
Dennis Phillips was an account manager for a commercial trucking company.
Peter Eastgate
Peter Nicolas Eastgate (born 13 December 1985) is a :Danish poker players, poker player from Denmark, best known as the winner of the World Series of Poker#Main Event, Main Event at the 2008 World Series of Poker. At the time, he became the you ...
, from Denmark, was one of only two non-North American players to make it to the final table (Russian
Ivan Demidov
Ivan Demidov (russian: Ива́н Деми́дов, ; born 1981) is a professional poker player from Moscow, Russia.
Demidov is one of the original "November Nine", having made the final table of the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event in 2 ...
was the other).
By making the final table, Eastgate and 23-year-old
Craig Marquis threatened
Phil Hellmuth
Phillip Jerome Hellmuth Jr. (born July 16, 1964) is an American professional poker player who has won a record sixteen World Series of Poker bracelets. He is the winner of the Main Event of the 1989 World Series of Poker (WSOP) and the Main Even ...
's 19-year record as youngest person to ever win the WSOP Main Event;
Eastgate's victory gave him that distinction.
Ylon Schwartz
Ylon Schwartz (; born 1970) is a chess master and professional poker player from Brooklyn, New York, and a fourth-place finisher in the $10,000 World Championship No Limit Hold'em Main Event of the 2008 World Series of Poker (WSOP), played o ...
was a former professional chess hustler in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
parks.
Two players, accountant
Darus Suharto
Darus Suharto (born 1968) is a poker player born in Sumenep, Indonesia and currently residing in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where he works as a Certified General Accountant at York University, and is a member of the Certified General Accountants ...
and poker professional
Scott Montgomery, were originally from Canada.
Kelly Kim, who had the fewest chips entering the final table, was an established professional player who cashed in numerous events but never won a major tournament.
2009
Original field: 6,494
Total prize pool: $61,043,600
Final table minimum prize: $1,263,602
Final table maximum prize: $8,547,042
Final table total prize pool: $27,220,989
Reference:
The final table's "
rags to riches
Rags to riches refers to any situation in which a person rises from poverty to wealth, and in some cases from absolute obscurity to heights of fame, fortune and celebrity—sometimes instantly. This is a common archetype in literature and popula ...
" story was Darvin Moon, a
logger from Maryland.
Moon entered the Main Event after winning a $130
satellite tournament
A satellite tournament is either a minor tournament or event on a competitive sporting tour or one of a group of such tournaments that form a series played in the same country or region.
Poker
A satellite tournament in poker is a qualifying event ...
in
Wheeling, West Virginia
Wheeling is a city in the U.S. state of West Virginia. Located almost entirely in Ohio County, of which it is the county seat, it lies along the Ohio River in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains and also contains a tiny portion extending ...
.
Jeff Shulman, who entered the final table in fourth place, was the president for
Card Player Magazine. Shulman openly stated that, if he won the bracelet, he would throw it away. Some initially speculated that this announcement stemmed from the fact that Harrah's Casino had partnered with Card Player Magazine's main competitor,
Bluff Magazine
''Bluff'' was an American magazine specializing in the game of poker. Separate editions were also published for Europe, Latin America, South Africa and Australasia. The American edition began as a bimonthly in October 2004 and went monthly in Aug ...
.
However, an article on the Card Player website indicated that Shulman's supposed disdain for Harrah's Casino was not based on its partnership with Bluff Magazine. “My comments have nothing to do with that, and everything to do with my disappointment in how the World Series is run," said Shulman. "It used to be run by people who loved and really cared about poker, and had the players in mind, first and foremost. That mission's been derailed by a few executives who now head the Series."
He also indicated that, if he won the bracelet, he would not throw it in the trash, but instead would pursue one of four options: hold an auction and donate the money to charity, hold a tournament for the players shut out of the 2009 WSOP Main Event, give it away as part of a promotion on SpadeClub.com (an online poker site sponsored by Cardplayer), or give it to television personality
Stephen Colbert
Stephen Tyrone Colbert ( ; born May 13, 1964) is an American comedian, writer, producer, political commentator, actor, and television host. He is best known for hosting the satirical Comedy Central program ''The Colbert Report'' from 2005 to ...
.
Other notable finalists included seven-time bracelet winner
Phil Ivey
Phillip Dennis Ivey Jr. (born February 1, 1977) is an American professional poker player who has won ten World Series of Poker bracelets, one World Poker Tour title, and appeared at nine World Poker Tour final tables. Ivey is regarded by numerou ...
and former
Bear Stearns
The Bear Stearns Companies, Inc. was a New York-based global investment bank, securities trading and brokerage firm that failed in 2008 as part of the global financial crisis and recession, and was subsequently sold to JPMorgan Chase. The compa ...
senior executive Steven Begleiter.
At age 21,
Joe Cada
Joseph Cada (born November 18, 1987) is an American professional poker player from Shelby Charter Township, Michigan, best known as the winner of the Main Event at the 2009 World Series of Poker (WSOP).
By winning the 6,494-entrant Main Event a ...
became the youngest player ever to win the WSOP Main Event.
2010
Original field: 7,319
Total prize pool: $68,798,600
Final table minimum prize: $811,823
Final table maximum prize: $8,944,310
Final table prize pool: $29,032,637
Jonathan Duhamel wins the tournament with the lead in chips at the final table.
2011
Original field: 6,865
Total prize Pool: $64,531,000
Final table minimum prize: $782,115
Final table maximum prize: $8,715,638
Final table prize pool: $28,469,161
Eoghan O'Dea's father,
Donnacha O'Dea
Donnacha "The Don" O'Dea (born 30 August 1948) is an Irish professional poker player. In his youth, he was a swimmer, and represented Ireland in the 1968 Olympics. He was also the first Irish swimmer to swim 100m in less than one minute. His par ...
, played the Main Event final table in
1983
The year 1983 saw both the official beginning of the Internet and the first mobile cellular telephone call.
Events January
* January 1 – The migration of the ARPANET to Internet protocol suite, TCP/IP is officially completed (this is consid ...
and
1991
File:1991 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Boris Yeltsin, elected as Russia's first president, waves the new flag of Russia after the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, orchestrated by Soviet hardliners; Mount Pinatubo erupts in the Phil ...
, making them the first father-son duo to make the final table. Martin Staszko, Badih Bounahra and Anton Makiievskyi were the first players to make the final table from their respective countries:
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...
,
Belize
Belize (; bzj, Bileez) is a Caribbean and Central American country on the northeastern coast of Central America. It is bordered by Mexico to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and Guatemala to the west and south. It also shares a wate ...
and
Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...
. With seven different countries represented, this was the most internationally diverse Main Event final table in WSOP history.
2012
Original field: 6,598
Total prize Pool: $62,021,200
Final table minimum prize: $754,798
Final table maximum prize: $8,527,982
Final table prize pool: $27,247,840
2013
Original field: 6,352
Total prize Pool: $59,708,800
Final table minimum prize: $733,224
Final table maximum prize: $8,359,531
Final table prize pool: $26,662,066
2014
Original field: 6,683
Total prize Pool: $62,820,200
Final table minimum prize: $730,725
Final table maximum prize: $10,000,000
Final table prize pool: $28,480,121
Mark Newhouse became the first player to make two consecutive Main Event final tables since
Dan Harrington
Dan Harrington (born December 6, 1945) is a professional poker player, best known for winning the Main Event at the 1995 World Series of Poker. He has earned one World Poker Tour title, two WSOP bracelets, and over six million dollars in tourna ...
in 2003 and 2004. Bruno Politano became the first Main Event finalist from
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
. This is the second final table since the format change in 2008 that none of the players had previously won a bracelet.
2015
Original field: 6,420
Total prize Pool: $60,348,000
Final table minimum prize: $1,001,020
Final table maximum prize: $7,683,346
Final table prize pool: $24,799,118
Joe McKeehen is the second player to start with the chip lead at the final table and win.
2016
Original field: 6,737
Total prize Pool: $63,327,800
Final table minimum prize: $1,000,000
Final table maximum prize: $8,000,000
Final table prize pool: $25,432,920
Notes
The number of bracelets, cashes, and earnings of the players is determined at the time they qualified for the final table of the Main Event. It does not represent any results from subsequent WSOP events including the
World Series of Poker Europe
The World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE) is the first expansion effort of World Series of Poker-branded poker tournaments outside the United States. Since 1970, participants had to travel to Las Vegas if they wanted to compete in the World Series o ...
, which occurs between the time the final table is determined and subsequently seated.
References
{{reflist, 2
World Series of Poker
Sports competitions in Las Vegas
Poker television shows