The 8th day of the Main Even has come to a conclusion, and the November Nine has been set. Chip leader Darvin Moon, a logger from Maryland, commands a large chip lead over most of the table and has about 200 big blinds to his credit. Yet, even with that stack, Darvin is not the headline at the final table. World class, top professional and Full Tilt Poker pro, Phil Ivey still remains at the table. Although he doesn’t have near the chips of the top 4 positions, Phil is still considered a favorite.
The current chip stacks for the final nine are:
1. Darvin Moon – 58,930,000
2. Eric Buchman – 34,800,000
3. Steven Begleiter – 29,885,000
4. Jeff Shulman – 19,580,000
5. Joseph Cada – 13,215,000
6. Kevin Schaffel – 12,390,000
7. Phil Ivey – 9,765,000
8. Antoine Saout – 9,500,000
9. James Akenhead – 6,800,000
Moon collected most of his chips with two massive all-ins thanks to the 12th place finisher Billy Kopp and 10th place finisher Jordan Smith. Moon beat Kopp with a flush over flush hand to take down around 45,000,000 in chips. Next, Smith’s pocket aces weren’t enough to beat Moon’s top set which netted him another 14,000,000 in chips.
With last years tournament won by foreign born player Peter Eastgate, this year it doesn’t look so great for the international field. Only two non-U.S players remain, Antoine Saout and James Akenhead, both with the shortest stacks in the field.