The race to become World Champion in Las Vegas may have taken all year, but we’re just eight eliminations from finding our who will wear the crown… at least for a couple of days!
Don’t worry, this is no jibe at the fact that Stoyan Madanzhiev still considers that the $3.9 million he won back in the summer makes him the real World Champion. In fact, we won’t even mention it.
The final nine players are set for a Las Vegas at the Rio showdown on December 28th, which takes place just two days before the 30th December showdown between the WSOP.com and GGPoker World Champions. That heads-up showdown will produce the ‘Hybrid’ world champion, awarding them an extra $1 million.
Day 2 of the WSOP Main Event, held on WSOP.com in Nevada and New Jersey saw the final nine players emerge from 71 players who kicked off the penultimate day of the event.
The chip leader going into the final table will be Joseph Hebert, who has 13 million chips, way more than double his nearest rival Shawn Stroke (5,252,000). Hebert, who has 41 cashes in the World Series of Poker already – mostly in WSOP Circuit events – will be looking to close out the victory on December 28th with a huge lead, albeit with eight opponents to outlast.
Day 2 kicked off with plenty of action as players of huge repute fell left, right and centre. From the off, the big names fell time and time again. Barry Hutter busted in 70th place for $18,274, Ryan Laplante exited in 68th for the same amount and Nick Schulman departed in 55th place for $20,304.
Galen Hall was out soon after, as the EPT Main Event winner from 2011 was out in 53rd place for $22,334, and the eliminations didn’t end there. Four-time WPT champion Darren Elias cashed for the same amount three places later, Ryan Riess busted in 47th and Freddy Deeb couldn’t ladder to the next spot either, busting in 46th place.
More big names who fans were rooting for busted soon after, with Matt Salsberg (41st), Scott Seiver (39th), Jason Somerville (32nd) and Maria Ho (22nd) all running deep in the event but not threatening the final table bubble. That anti-honour would fall to Anthony Spinella, who fell in 10th place for $77,832.
It was Hebert’s day, however. From there being two tables left, Hebert busted everyone bar one player from 15 players down to the final nine, including Clayton Maguire, Martin Zamani and Dan Zack. Other big names made it, however, and in decent shape.
One former three-time WSOP bracelet winner who’ll be confident of spinning up a shorter stack than most is Upeshka De Silva, who took part in this fun video via the World Poker Tour about his hometown of Katy in Texas with fellow poker pro Cord Garcia.
With $1,553,256 up for grabs to the winner and just $98,813 on offer to whoever finishes 9th, the final table will take place at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada on December 28th.
Here’s how the remainder of the Hybrid Main Event will close out, with the Heads-Up Championship on December 30th also offering a cool million dollars to the winner.
WSOP Main Event Final Table Chipcounts:
| Position | Player | Chips |
| 1st | Joseph Hebert | 13,052,534 |
| 2nd | Shawn Stroke | 5,252,000 |
| 3rd | Ryan Hagerty | 5,071,572 |
| 4th | Ye Yuan | 4,829,459 |
| 5th | Michael Cannon | 4,408,847 |
| 6th | Gershon Distenfeld | 3,475,481 |
| 7th | Ron Jenkins | 2,476,746 |
| 8th | Upeshka De Silva | 2,151,969 |
| 9th | Harrison Dobin | 1,581,392 |
