Meet the World Series of Poker Main Event Final Nine Players

The 2012 World Series of Poker has ended for the summer, but one final table is still on everyone’s mind.

After a final table of nine was reached in the main event on July 17, the remaining competitors will reconvene in late October 29th for a chance at the bracelet and more than $8.5 million.

In what used to be dubbed the November Nine, the October Nine, thanks to the presidential election in November, will battle it out earlier this year for poker’s most prestigious title. A packed Penn and Teller Theater at the Rio Hotel and Casino will be the venue for hoards of spectators.

Here’s a recap of poker’s most prestigious, richest and exciting event of the year.

A Look At The Numbers

A total of 6,598 players posted the $10,000 buy-in to create a $62 million prize pool. As a result, the winner will walk away with the sixth largest prize ever awarded to a WSOP main event champion, $8,527,982.

This year saw the fifth largest turnout in main event history. Overall, the attendance for the main event dropped by about 3.8 percent from 2011, but was 1.6 percent higher than the turnout in 2010.

The third of three starting days saw a massive turnout of 3,418 entrants, a single-day record for the main event. This huge surge of players accounted for more than half of the total entrants. While the main event had four starting days in recent years, the schedule was adjusted in 2012.

The Bubble Bursts

The top 666 players were scheduled to make the money.

Hand-for-hand can sometimes go on for hours upon hours, but this year the money bubble broke on the first round. There were five all-ins: A-A vs. K-K, A-A vs. Q-Q, two A-K suiteds vs. A-A and K-K vs. 5-5. The mayhem resulted in four eliminations, meaning the players all split the $19,227 cash.

When the announcement was made, the room exploded in celebration.

The four official bubble boys of this year’s main event were Dylan Schwartz, Steve Rosen, Dane Lomas and Desmond Portano.

Close Calls

The main event payouts are top heavy, and so while a deep run can result in nice scores, they pale in comparison to the money at the final table. A handful of big names and interesting people made it deep this year, coming close to poker glory but falling just short.

With a short stack all tournament, three-time bracelet winner Perry Green said he had a switch blade while his opponents were using machine guns, but he still managed a deep run in the main event – more than three decades after he finished runner-up to the late Stu Ungar.

Green, 76, has been coming to Las Vegas to play poker for longer than most of the 6,598-player starting field has been alive. Over fifty six years, the Alaskan has made numerous treks to the Mojave Desert to compete among the most recognized gamblers in the world. His most recent trip ended with a 152nd-place finish in the main event for $52,000.

Vanessa Selbst, coming off her second bracelet, used her aggression to wade through the main event field. Deep in the event, she played a big hand that had many people talking.

On a flop of K Q 4, a player led out for 9,000 into a pot of about 30,000. Selbst called. The next player to act made it 25,000. Two players folded, and the original bettor called. Selbst called as well. With about 100,000 in the middle, the turn brought the 9. The small blind and Selbst checked, before facing a 50,000-chip bet. It was folded to Selbst, and she shoved for about 170,000 more. Her opponent snap-called with a set of fours. Selbst tabled 10 8.

“I shoved trying to represent J-10,” Selbst said. “I actually thought I’d get him to fold [a set of fours].” Selbst read her opponent for top two pair or bottom set. Her bluff was a misfire, but she was rescued by a river 7. Selsbt explained that her play made sense in the WSOP main event because some opponents “value their tournament life a lot more.”

The big hand propelled Selbst to a 73rd-place finish.

Nomadic poker player Marcy Topp finished in 71st out of the 6,598-player field, cashing for $106,056. It was her first-ever result in a major poker tournament. Topp entered the main event via a freeroll hosted by South Point Casino. Before making it to a single-table satellite, she had to first outlast tons of players on the casino’s free-play website, South Point Poker.

Sam Holden, who finished ninth in 2011, ended up cracking the top 60 this year. Holden called it “ridiculous” that he had a shot at back-to-back final tables. He credits his patience to being able to survive. “I’m pretty good with the stamina part of the game,” Holden said. “Some people lose their head a little when they go card dead for awhile.”

Internet pro Paul Volpe, who had a huge stack for most of the tournament, faded out in 20th. He outdid fellow online grinders Yuval Bronstein (23rd), Taylor Paur (33th), Amit Makhija (47th), Dave D’Alesandro (62nd), Jason Somerville (69th) and Isaac Baron (85th) in the top 100.

East Coast pro Amnon Filippi exited in 39th.

The player entering the final day, which would cut the field from 27 to 9, with the most valuable prior main event experience was 38-year-old Jamie Robbins, who finished 11th in 2009.

“I’m final table or bust,” he said after day five. “I said that on the first day of play, and I’m sticking to it. Anything short of that goal will be a major disappointment for me. The money is great, but I need to be in that final nine to consider this tournament a success.”

Robbins entered day seven with a top-10 stack, but fell short and eventually busted in 19th when a semibluff ran into a set. Fortunately for Robbins, he has confidence to get back again.

Long-time pro Danny Wong hadn’t been around tournament poker for quite some time, taking a break to pursue cash games around the world, but he made a splash in his return to the circuit by notching a deep run in the main event.

Arguably, Wong had as much poker experience as anyone at the final two tables. However, he suffered a crippling beat when his A-10 was victimized by A-9. Before the river card, he had a shot at poker’s most coveted, yet improbable, title.

Despite doubling up once, Wong was still a short stack and eventually hit the rail in 14th place for a score of $465,159. He now has more than $2.5 million in career earnings.

“You never know when it’s your time,” Wong said of the deep run. “I never doubted myself. Other people may say things that you don’t like to hear, but you have to brush that off. You know yourself best. You know what you’re capable of.”

Women Fall Short On Day Seven

In total, 211 women entered the main event this year. With fewer than 80 players remaining, there were four women remaining, and two remained with only 12 players left.

With the elimination of Elisabeth Hille in 11th, the opportunity for a female poker player to make the gender’s second-ever main event final table rested with France’s Gaelle Baumann. Baumann was also looking to outdo Annie Duke’s 10th-place finish in 2000.

Poker Hall of Famer Barbara Enright made the lone official final table by a woman in 1995.

Baumann, a 29-year-old professional, entered the ten-handed table around midnight as the shortest stack. She doubled up less than 15 hands in, but still sat with the fewest amount of chips.

Again she got her stack in, but her A-9 ran into A-J, and she was gone. She has major regrets about going with her final hand. “I could have waited,” said the visibly dejected Baumann.

The drought for women at main event final tables was never on her mind, she said.
Despite coming up short of history, Hille was very happy about her performance. “To make it far in this tournament you have to win flips,” she said, “and when you lose them, what can you do?”

Hille, who has been playing poker as an amateur for four years, grinds mostly on the Internet in her home country of Norway. When asked what she’s going to do with the prize money, Hille said: “We’ll see. I’m not quite sure what the payout is, and I’m going to have to pay some taxes to you guys, so we’ll see how far the money will go.”

The October Nine

Meet the men that make up this year’s final table.

The chip leader in seat six is Jesse Sylvia with 43.8 million. The 26-year old American won a massive coinflip against Robert Salaburu when his K-Q overcame pocket jacks to vault him up the leaderboard. He never looked back. Sylvia’s biggest score to date was a runner-up finish in a Caesar’s Palace $225 buy-in event for $15,000. Now, he’s a favorite to capture $8.5 million.

Second in chips is Hungary’s Andras Korkonai, with nearly 29.4 million. The 30-year old World Poker Tour L.A. Poker Classic winner was involved in a controversial hand earlier in the tournament were he faced possible elimination at the hands of Gaelle Baumann’s pocket kings. Korkonai mistakenly went all-in after mucking his cards, thinking he had won the pot. In the end, the ruling went in his favor and he survived. He went on to eliminate Baumann on the final-table bubble.

Third in chips is 2012 WSOP bracelet winner Greg Merson, with 28.7 million. The Laurel, Maryland native took down the $10,000 buy-in six-max championship for $1.1 million just days before the main event began and is now in a great position to make a run at this title. Merson is now also a major contender in the Card Player POY race, in which he will take the lead if he finishes in third place or higher in October.

Fourth in chips is Russell Thomas with 24.8 million. The 24-year-old Wallingford, Pennsylvania native has accumulated more than $125,000 in tournament earnings, with three prior WSOP cashes. He’s already guaranteed to crush those numbers, with $750,000 locked up and a shot at millions more.

Fifth in chips is Steven Gee, with 16.8 million. He’s the final table’s elder statesman at 56-years-old. The Sacramento, California native is bringing years of tournament experience to the table, with 17 career cashes dating back to 2005 and more than $500,000 in prior earnings. 

Coming into the final in sixth is Michael Esposito, with 16.2 million. The 43-year-old Seaford, New York resident has 18 career cashes to his name totaling $164,000, with his largest score coming from a final table finish in a 2005 WSOP Circuit main event in Atlantic City.

Seventh in chips is Robert Salaburu, with 15.1 million. The 27-year-old Texan has been playing poker for more than a decade, mostly online. He will blow his prior earnings out of the water even with a ninth-place finish.

Eighth in chips is Jacob Balsiger, with 13.1 million. At 21 years old, the Oregon native is the youngest player at the final table, and he has only been eligible to play in casinos for a short while. Thus, he has little in the way of live tournament earnings. That’s all about to change in October.

Rounding out the final table is short stack Jeremy Ausmus, with 9.8 million in chips. The 32-year-old Las Vegas resident has 21 career cashes totaling more than $425,000 in earnings, with his biggest score coming from a third-place finish in a $5,000 no-limit hold’em event at the Bicycle Casino for nearly $200,000.

Here’s a look at the final-table payouts:

1 $8,527,982
2 $5,292,889
3 $3,797,558
4 $2,850,494
5 $2,154,616
6 $1,640,461
7 $1,257,790
8 $971,252
9 $754,798

All players have, so far, been paid ninth-place money. ♠

The Finalists in the 2012 WSOP Main Event

Name: Jesse Sylvia
Age: 26
Location: Las Vegas, Nevada
Career: Professional poker player
Largest score prior to main event: $15,078
Chip count: 43,875,000

Name: Andras Koroknai
Age: 30
Location: Debrecen, Hungary
Career: Professional poker player
Largest score prior to main event: $1,788,001
Chip count: 29,375,000

Name: Greg Merson
Age: 25
Location: Laurel, Maryland
Career: Professional poker player
Largest score prior to main event: $1,136,197
Chip count: 28,725,000

Name: Russell Thomas
Age: 24
Location: Hartford, Connecticut
Career: Actuary
Largest score prior to main event: $84,256
Chip count: 24,800,000

Name: Steven Gee
Age: 57
Location: Sacramento, California
Career: Professional poker player
Largest score prior to main event: $472,479
Chip count: 16,860,000

Name: Michael Esposito
Age: 44
Location: Seaford, New York
Career: Commodity Broker
Largest score prior to main event: $47,310
Chip count: 16,260,000

Name: Robert Salaburu
Age: 27
Location: San Antonio, Texas
Career: Professional poker player
Largest score prior to main event: $5,496
Chip count: 15,155,000

Name: Jake Balsiger
Age: 21
Location: Tempe, Arizona
Career: College Student
Largest score prior to main event: $3,970
Chip count: 13,115,000

Name: Jeremy Ausmus
Age: 32
Location: Las Vegas, Nevada
Career: Professional poker player
Largest score prior to main event: $190,000
Chip count: 9,805,000