World Series Of Poker Main Event: McKeehen's Stack At Shorthanded Play One Of The Best In History

After the first day of the 2015 World Series of Poker main event final table, poker pro Joe McKeehen picked up right were he left off in July and had built his chip stack to more than 90 million when the table became shorthanded.

He entered the final table with 32.76 percent of the chips in play, and with six left he had 47.5 percent of them. It’s a huge chip lead, but it’s actually not the best in the last decade of WSOP main event final tables.

In 2007, Jerry Yang went from the second shortest stack when play began to having more than 49 percent of the chips when just six were still in contention. As we all know, Yang continued his domination of the table and went on to win the tournament.

Jamie Gold’s magical run in 2006, when he began the final table with 32.66 percent of the chips in play, wasn’t quite as dominating as McKeehen’s during the early stages of the final table. Gold had accumulated 41.1 percent of the chips by shorthanded play.

Both the 2006 and 2007 main events were before the November Nine era, so McKeehen’s dominating chip lead at this point in the tournament is by far best since the months-long wait before the final table was instituted. McKeehen demonstrated he was in top poker form late last month when he won the Wynn Fall Poker Classic main event.

Since 2005, the chip leader after a player was eliminated in seventh has won the tournament half the time. Given McKeehen’s poker skills, it’s pretty unlikely he’ll finish outside the top two, but anything can still happen. His stack is huge, but 152 big blinds isn’t invulnerable.

Here’s a look at the past decade of chip leaders when play became shorthanded, their percentage of the chips in play and their finish.

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