It’s important to have some context to appreciate just how distilled the final ESPN product is. The ESPN broadcast of the final table spanned a bit over two hours (including commercials, interviews and various bumpers). Final table play took about 17 hours to get down to heads up, and then heads up play took about two and a half hours for a grand total of about 20 hours. ESPN showed 30-35 hands, while live play took place over the course of 360+ hands. So what got left on the cutting room floor?

In my mind, the biggest casualty of the editor’s knife was clearly Antoine Saout. Maybe it’s because he’s French and his English is a little halting. Maybe it’s because he came in very short and very unknown and wasn’t given much of a chance to make a deep run. Whatever the reason, viewers at home were really robbed by the exclusion of Saout’s excellent storyline. He, along with Eric Buchman, absolutely dominated the early stages of play, and most players who listened to the entire broadcast or watched the final table live would probably agree that Saout was the best player at the table. More impressively: he handled his short stack and his big stack with equal skill. If Cada hadn’t hit a two-outer to survive his three handed all in versus Saout, you’d probably be reading stories of Saout’s incredible final table performance. Instead, some of the best play the final table of the WSOP has seen in recent years will remain only in the memory of a few.

Eric Buchman suffered a similar fate. Buchman played textbook big-stack poker for several hours and bent basically the entire table (save Saout) to his will. Viewers don’t ever get a sense of how dominant Buchman was – the highlight they see is Buchman sucking out to eliminate Schaffel. Buchman’s exclusion is less a result of him as a character ala Saout (he got plenty of interview time during the ESPN show) and more a result of ESPN’s approach to present the broadcast as a pseudo-live event. ESPN never acknowledges that hands occur in between the hands it shows, and as a result you never see (or hear about) the multiple pots Buchman took down preflop without a fight. They don’t make for good TV in and of themselves, but they do make for a better show by putting the bigger showdowns in proper perspective. It’s always surprised me that ESPN didn’t take an approach along the lines of what PokerStars.tv does with their Sunday Million highlight shows – create some kind of graphic that shows how chips fluctuated in the space between broadcasted hands, or maybe even do a rapid-fire summary of the pots in between. Not to sound corny, but every hand matters at the final table of the WSOP, and every hand is interesting. Cutting the small pots out of the picture entirely harms the hands that are left to stay in ways that it’s impossible to appreciate when you’re viewing.

Another surprise I got while watching the ESPN broadcast was how tight Phil Ivey was really playing. It was apparent to the audience that he was picking his spots pretty conservatively, but when you see some of his hole cards (especially the JJ hand against Saout), it’s hard not to conclude he was playing a little too tight. On ESPN, you can also see and hear a bit more of Ivey’s frustration at being card-dead, but if you’re not going to go with JJ against Saout, who had been playing very aggressively, it’s hard to see what you’re waiting for. Most live viewers assumed Ivey was just on a steal or (given that he tanked, that Ivey had been raising a good amount the last few orbits, that the break began after that hand and that Saout had been quite agro with three-betting preflop) that he had a mediocre hand and was thinking about picking off Saout. I was genuinely shocked when I saw jacks on the replay.

I mentioned the issue of context when discussing Buchman’s disappearing act above, and I think it’s important to note another critical omission on the part of ESPN that further deprives the viewing audience of an accurate sense of how play actually occurred: chip counts. It’s terribly frustrating as a poker-playing viewer to not have those counts on the screen at any point during the hand (with the slim exception of being able to deduce the starting stacks from the all-in raise size), because without them it’s very tough to evaluate the quality of a play. Let’s be honest – armchair quarterbacking the play is 99% of the fun of watching, and not knowing stack sizes renders you pretty much unable to do so. It also strips out a lot of the drama involved – is this a big pot for a player? For both players? Obviously you find that out when they’re all in, but a sense of the pot building toward that point just makes each hand that much more dramatic, and also adds a variety of drama (something other than a preflop all in) that breaks up the predictability of the broadcast a bit.

There’s another casualty when context is so thoroughly excised, and it’s a subtle but important loss: the skill aspect of the game. You lose so much of the nuance of the game, the layers of strategy, the interesting shifts in momentum and table control when you ignore 90% of the hands played (and remove critical information from the hands you do show). You also severely limit what the announcers can discuss, essentially curtailing their analysis to include only hands and information available to the audience, which encourages a very surface analysis that does little (or nothing) to promote the skill aspect of poker. That aspect is all the more critical when you consider what hands ESPN tends to select – all in preflop hands where poker really does come down to the luck of the draw. I think this is the single biggest gap between the live game and the ESPN broadcast, and I don’t think it’s simply an unavoidable function of compressing the tournament down to a televisable chunk. Instead, I think the lack of apparent skill involved in the broadcast version is a direct result of how ESPN chooses to compress and present final table play.

Nowhere is that deficit more apparent than in the heads-up match between Cada and Moon. A majority of the final table broadcast paints Moon as the inexperienced amateur, and rightfully so – that’s what he is, and he made several head-scratching plays. However, Moon played excellently for the overwhelming majority of heads up play, and while ESPN two of his best instances of outplaying Cada it simply doesn’t capture just how (surprisingly) well Moon was playing, and how much skill was involved on both sides in a heads up match that took nearly a hundred hands to resolve. For anyone just casually observing, Cada’s comments regarding how tough Moon was playing might seem like tactical flattery or sarcasm. Anyone who watched the whole match, however, realizes that those compliments were issued with the purest sincerity possible by Cada who, until Moon’s insane misstep to end the match, was essentially fighting an uphill battle for a win many observers thought was a forgone conclusion. By boiling that down to eight hands, ESPN does a serious disservice to not only the viewer, but to poker in general. The world’s largest tournament should also serve as a showcase for the intellectual and psychological depth involved in the game, especially when you have a deep-stacked heads up match between two very dissimilar opponents. This year’s broadcast simply didn’t deliver.

Despite such criticism, ESPN deserves tons of credit for producing a difficult product under strenuous conditions, and the airing of the WSOP does more to ignite popular participation in the game of poker than any other single event – in fact, nothing even comes close. It’s inevitable that the WSOP played and the WSOP shown will end up being two very different animals. I just wish that the two shared a bit more genetic resemblance than they did this year.

For a while it appeared that the champion might not be such a different sort after all, as (admittedly lesser known) poker pro Eric Buchman positioned himself in the WSOP driver’s seat through excellent play and well-timed quad kings, but poker karma struck Buchman in a way many would consider disproportionate, sending him to the rails in 4th.

Instead of a pro, we got the Joe – not the “Average Joe” character that the media has painted Darvin Moon to be, but Joe Cada.

Most predicted that Cada’a experience and chip edge would result in a victory. Some speculated that Moon’s style would actually make the heads up match more competitive than expected, with the Maryland logger’s willingness to sling tons of chips in preflop complicating Cada’ path to the win, but that wasn’t the case in the heads up match for the WSOP title.

For his win, Cada takes home $8,547,042 and Moon takes home $5,182,928 (that’s about 306,000 New Orleans Saints hats). When all is said and done, Cada would probably have ended up taking home more than Moon from the WSOP overall even if Moon had won, as he’s got the benefit of ongoing sponsorship from PokerStars, while Moon chose (admirably or ignorantly, depending on how you look at it) to remain sponsor-free.

The final hand as we reported it:

#88
3m raise from Cada, 8m total three bet from Moon.

Cada goes all in. Moon quickly calls

Moon   
Cada   

This is a weird one for Moon with that snap call. Moon is covered. Strange departure from Moon’s solid play so far. He started the hand with well over 60m.

Flop
   

Cada is two cards from the title. He’s hugging Bax. He can’t even watch.

Nice try, dealer.

That’s it.

Hats off to Harrah’s and ESPN for a well-executed 2009 World Series of Poker Final Table.

The November Nine, as the players at the final table of the main event are known for short, last took to the felt at the Rio All-Suites Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas in July. They return to the scene today at noon Pacific time (3 p.m. Eastern) to play for the first prize of about $8.5 million.

Here’s a guide to the conclusion of poker’s biggest tournament:

The players
Here are the players and their chip stacks heading into the start of play:

Darvin Moon – 58,930,000
Eric Buchman – 34,800,000
Steven Begleiter – 29,885,000
Jeff Shulman – 19,580,000
Joseph Cada – 13,215,000
Kevin Schaffel – 12,390,000
Phil Ivey – 9,765,000
Antoine Saout – 9,500,000
James Akenhead – 6,800,000

The average chip count is $22 million.

Here is how the players will be seated:

Blind structure
The final table will start at level 33, with blinds of $120,000-$240,000 and antes of $30,000. Each pot at the start will be $630K.

Level Ante Blinds
33 $30,000 $120,000-$240,000
34 $40,000 $150,000-$300,000
Remove $5,000 Chips
35 $50,000 $200,000-$400,000
36 $50,000 $250,000-$500,000
37 $75,000 $300,000-$600,000
Remove $25,000 Chips
38 $100,000 $400,000-$800,000
39 $150,000 $500,000-$1,000,000
40 $200,000 $600,000-$1,200,000
41 $200,000 $800,000-$1,600,000
42 $300,000 $1,000,000-$2,000,000
43 $300,000 $1,200,000-$2,400,000
44 $400,000 $1,500,000-$3,000,000
45 $500,000 $2,000,000-$4,000,000
46 $500,000 $2,500,000-$5,000,000
47 $1,000,000 $3,000,000-$6,000,000

Storylines
The biggest story going in the event is Phil Ivey, one of the most recognizable players in the game, and one of the most feared. Despite coming into the final table at a disadvantage in chips, Ivey is anywhere from the favorite to the third favorite to win the main event, according to oddsmakers. Ivey, who has seven bracelets, already won a pair at this year’s WSOP. Obviously, winning the eighth would be the crowning achievement to an already amazing career.

Other than Ivey, there’s Moon, a 46-year-old logger who is this year’s “average Joe” at the final table. While he has a huge stack, he is up against a talented table of poker players. Six of the players remaining play poker for a living. Then there’s Jeff Shulman, the editor of Card Player Magazine. He’s being coached by Phill Hellmuth, and created quite a stir when he said that he would throw away the bracelet if he won because of his disdain for Harrah’s (although he has since backed off that comment).

Scheduling matters
Here’s how the final table will go down: Play at the Penn & Teller Theater at the Rio will continue on Saturday until just two players remain. The final two players return on Monday, Nov. 9 at 10 p.m. Pacific to determine a winner.

ESPN’s broadcast of the final table will air on Tuesday at 9 p.m. Eastern. The two-hour broadcast will recap all the action from Saturday and Monday.

Payouts
Everyone still in the ME is already a millionaire. Here’s how much players will get depending on their finish:

1st: $8,546,435
2nd: $5,182,601
3rd: $3,479,485
4th: $2,502,787
5th: $1,953,395
6th: $1,587,133
7th: $1,404,002
8th: $1,300,228
9th: $1,263,602

Want to go?
If you are in or near Vegas, there are no tickets, and space is first-come, first-served, for anyone over the age of 21. Open seating on Saturday is very limited, according to the WSOP Web site, but should open up as players are eliminated. Plenty of seating will be open to the public on Monday.

Updates
PTP will keep you up to date throughout the final table. Look for news updates on the WSOP section of the site. You can also get major updates from by following us on Facebook and hand-by-hand updates on Twitter.

What are the stacks for the final table of the WSOP?

Below are the chip totals for everyone at the final table of the 2009 Main Event of the World Series of Poker:

Darvin Moon – 58,930,000
Eric Buchman – 34,800,000
Steven Begleiter – 29,885,000
Jeff Shulman – 19,580,000
Joe Cada – 13,215,000
Kevin Schaffel – 12,390,000
Phil Ivey – 9,765,000
Antoine Saout – 9,500,000
James Akenhead – 6,800,000

How many total chips are in play at this year’s WSOP Main Event?
194,820,000 total chips (6494 players each began with 30,000 in chips).

How many total chips were in play last year?
136,900,000 (6844 players each started with 20,000 in chips)

What level are the players at when the return to play?
They are in level 33 with approximately 24 minutes left. Levels are 120 minutes each. Level 33 blinds are 120k / 240k with a 30k ante.

Level 34 has 150k / 300k blinds with a 40k ante.

That means the average stack going into Level 24, assuming no one is eliminated in the closing minutes of Level 33, will be about 70BBs, or 21.6 million chips.

Where can I find the rest of the structure for the WSOP final table blinds and antes?
The official structure for the Main Event of the 2009 WSOP can be found here.

Where is everyone seated?
Players retain the same seats they had when play ended. Darvin Moon is the button. The seating arrangement is as show below:

Who is the favorite to win the 2009 WSOP?
Oddsmakers have Darvin Moon as a strong, if not prohibitive favorite. Popular money is behind Phil Ivey, but many think that Eric Buchman is the best value from a betting perspective. Read more on WSOP betting lines and props here.

Who are these people?
Unlike recent final tables, this final table of the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event is chock full of people who have solid poker resumes. Among the nine, only Darvin Moon counts as a true amateur, and Steve Begleiter is best classified as a recreational player. For brief bios on the 2009 November Nine, read this.

When does the final table resume play?
Play resumes in the Penn and Teller Theater at the Rio in Las Vegas on November 7th and runs through the 10th. Times have yet to be announced.

When does ESPN show the final table of the WSOP?
ESPN will show their coverage of the final table November 10th from 9-11:30 p.m EST.

How much does Phil Ivey have riding on sidebets on the WSOP?
ESPN The Magazine recently quoted Ivey’s assistant citing a number of $4 million – we’re assuming that’s Ivey’s potential win and not liability, as he would have gotten a good price on his money for any “Ivey wins” bet (current odds for that are 4-1 at major sites). Earlier reports put the totals as high as $12 million. We’ll never know for sure.

Is Jeff Shulman really going to throw the Main Even bracelet in the garbage if he wins?
He said he was, now he says he won’t. Shulman apparently has other plans for the bracelet now, according to a segment on a recent episode of Inside Deal (also featuring November Nine member Kevin Schaffel) that you can watch a bit down the page in this post.

Who is sponsoring who at this year’s WSOP final table?

Darvin Moon – Unaffiliated
James Akenhead – Full Tilt Poker
Phil Ivey – Full Tilt Poker
Kevin Schaffel – PokerStars
Steven Begleiter – PokerStars
Eric Buchman – Full Tilt Poker
Joe Cada – PokerStars
Antoine Saout – Everest Poker
Jeff Shulman – 19,580,000

What is this November Nine thing anyway? I thought the WSOP was in the summer
You’re right, it is. Starting in 2008, the WSOP made the decision to delay play of the final table of the WSOP Main Event in an attempt to increase public interest and ratings for ESPN. ESPN has always had a bit of a weird animal with the WSOP – they’re generally showing their coverage weeks or months after the outcome of the big event is already known. The November Nine delay remedies that issue, and its popularity in 08 and 09 strongly suggests that the format is likely to stick around for years to come.

What are the payouts for this year’s final table of the World Series of Poker?

1. $8.5 million
2. $5.2 million
3. $3.5 million
4. $2.5 million
5. $2.0 million
6. $1.6 million
7. $1.4 million
8. $1.3 million
9. $1.25 million

Where can I get live updates on the WSOP?
The best source for chip counts and the like is the official results page for the Main Event at WSOP.com located here. We’ll also have live coverage and photos that you can access via our Facebook and Twitter pages.

All odds cited taken from Bodog and current as of the time of this article; refer to Bodog’s WSOP Odds page for current numbers.

CHIPS AIN’T WORTH WHAT THEY USED TO BE
Even though he has what amounts to almost a 2-1 lead over his closest opponent and could double up the four shortest stacks and STILL have just about an average stack, the oddsmakers aren’t giving Darvin Moon a ton of credit. Yes, he is the favorite to win the Main Event at 17/10, but that’s the same odds you get for Moon finishing in 4th or 5th. By comparison, shortest stack James Akenhead, who has roughly 10% of Moon’s stack, is running at 7/4 to finish in 4th or 5th.

Moon does get some respect in a last longer scenario versus Phil Ivey – +250 on Ivey against -275 on Moon – but even that line is a bit gross for Moon when you consider he’s got a better than 6-1 edge on Ivey chip-wise.

More proof that the market prefers skill over stack: Steven Begleiter is getting the same 4/1 to win as Jeff Shulman to win. What’s the gap between Shulman’s experience (a long string of cashes and an appearance at the 2000 World Series of Poker Main Event Final Table) versus Begleiter’s (…) worth in terms of WSOP chips? About 10 million, as Shulman’s got 20 million to Begleiter’s 30 million heading into play.

Speaking of not getting respect…

ERIC BUCHMAN CAN’T GET NO RESPECT
He’s got a mountain of chips. He’s got arguably the best seat at the table, positionally-speaking. He’s got a ton of live experience and a long list of significant cashes that few at the table can match, including a 200k+ WSOP-C cash and plenty of deep WSOP runs.

So why is Buchman sitting at 3-1 to win the WSOP when Steven Begleiter, by all accounts a Moneymaker-esque amateur with 6 million less in chips and out of position to Buchman, gets just a slightly worse 4-1? As good as Ivey is, should he be a 4-1 with under 1/3rd of the chips Buchman has? And while Moon is sitting on a huge stack, should he really be at 17/10 when just a couple of significant pots with Buchman could reverse the lead?

Finally, does it really seem like Buchman and Begleiter have the same chance of being the first players to exit, with Bodog putting both at 10/1?

WHAT’S A DOUBLE UP?
Short stacks take it on the chin in the current odds scenario, even though tournament poker is a game where stacks go into the middle quickly, and players can move from worst to first (or at least into the stratosphere of the leader) with a double up or two.

Despite the fact that a double up would essentially get him to average, Antoine Saout is Bodog’s second favorite to exit the final table first at 23/10 (actual shortest stack James Akenhead is a slightly worse 2/1 despite having about 3 million chips less than Saout). On the other hand, Kevin Schaffel rates 4/1 for exiting first, even though a significant confrontation with any short stack (quite likely given the table positions) would basically cripple him.

YES, YOU CAN BET ON THAT
Bodog’s got over a dozen WSOP-related bets not referenced above, including those strictly for degens (What will be the suit of the final river card in the final hand of the 2009 Main Event?), those with a little national pride (Will the winning player of the 2009 WSOP be an American or a European?) and a variety of last longer and placement bets (Cada vs Schaffel with an even money line? Really?). View the complete list of available wagers here.

Check out our complete WSOP coverage here

JUST THE FACTS
There’s no redraw for seats at the final table, so the players will come back to the same seats they held while the table was ten handed. When play resumes, Darvin Moon will be in the button, resulting in a final table that will look like this, positionally:

When play resumes, they’ll start in Level 33 ($120,000-$240,000 with $30k antes) with approximately 24 minutes left. That means every pot will be worth 630k – not a huge chunk of the total chips in play, but a fairly significant amount to most of the players due to how Moon skews stacks with his massive chip edge.

To wit: The average stack is about 22 million. If you remove Moon, the average stack of the remaining players drops dramatically to 17 million.

After 24 minutes pass, they’ll head into Level 34 ($150,000-$300,000 with $40k antes). Each level lasts two hours. To translate that into hands, the average hands dealt at a live game is probably about 30 hands an hour. With the pomp, circumstance and extended thought likely to go into play at this table, you can expect that hands per hour will probably dip into the high teens, meaning that players can expect to see between 30-40 hands, or about four orbits, per level.

Assuming no one is eliminated in the final minutes of Level 33, the average stack in Level 34 will be a bit over 70 BBs.

The blinds increase fairly evenly over the next few levels. You can view a complete structure sheet at WSOP.com here for a total picture.

IN THE BEGINNING…
While lots of experiences can prepare you for playing at the Final Table of the World Series of Poker, most people seem to agree that there’s no way to completely prepare for the stress and pressure that comes along with the real thing. Given that, expect most players to take the first orbit or so easy as they settle in to the table and work out the jitters caused by the weeks of anticipation preceding play.

Since this is the default path you’d expect a typical player to take, there will obviously be players looking to exploit it. Arguably in the best position to do so: Darvin Moon, whose mountain of chips will allow him to risk missteps that no one else at the table, save possibly Buchman, can really afford or stomach.

Next in line: Phil Ivey, who has to be in his opponent’s heads – not only because he’s Phil Ivey, but because all of the WSOP coverage up to this point has shown him either absolutely owning an opponent, having the nuts or both. While he’s never been on this stage, it’s hard to believe that Ivey can be rattled sitting at any poker table under any circumstances and he’ll likely be looking to build his stack by taking advantage of his ability to act decisively while others fade under the immediate pressure.

Finally, look for Buchman to take advantage of his excellent position and chip excess to turn on the gas if Moon and Ivey pass in front of him – and possibly even if they don’t.

SHORT STACKS: ATTACK OR RELAX?
The WSOP ME is a pretty deep tournament, so ’short stacks’ is a bit of a misnomer at this table. Consider: If Akenhead, the shortest stack at 6.8 million, does nothing but fold for two and a half hours, he’ll still have close to a 10BB stack as play moves into Level 35.

That said, no one gets to this point and then settles for blinding off. How should / will the five shorter stacks (Ivey, Akenhead, Schaffel, Cada and Saout) proceed? We’ve already described how Ivey will probably get out of the gate: with aggression until he meets resistance or gets his stack closer to a point where he can really apply pressure to the 30 million + stacks. Akenhead has plenty of live final table experience, so he’s no stranger to managing the short stack, but his table position – sandwiched inbetween Moon and Ivey – might make it very difficult for him to be active without a hand. Schaffel his a similar problem with Ivey acting before him and Buchman to his left, as Buchman will probably be very interested in getting involved in pots with Schaffell (and Begleiter) in position.

Shulman beat out Daniel Negreanu in a heads-up battle that swung back and forth over the course of several hours. The final blow to Negreanu came when the two got all in on a jack-high flop, with Daniel holding top pair with QJ and Shulman holding AA. Negreanu managed a J on the turn to reduce Shulman to a two-outer, but the river promptly delivered one of the remaining aces.

The heads up battle followed a grueling final table experience. Once final table play began, it took five hours for the first player to be eliminated.

Shulman had this to say about the hand: “The truth is, because it was on television and we were heads up, I knew I got in with the best hand (holding pocket aces). When the jack came on the turn (giving Negreanu three-of-a-kind and making him the huge favorite), I had pretty much given up. I said to myself, ‘well, at least I am not going to be embarrassed here. What are you going to do? That’s poker.’ When the ace came (on the river), I just about passed out.”

Shulman came into the final table in fourth chip position; Negreanu entered as a short stack.

That river was worth £801,603 to Shulman, or about $1.2 million US. Negreanu received just shy of £500k, which, according to the Hendon Mob database, pushed him ahead of Jaime Gold on the all-time tournament money winnings list.

The final standings and payouts:

1. Barry Shulman – £801,603
2. Daniel Negreanu – £495,589
3. Praz Bansi – £360,887
4. Jason Mercier – £267,267
5. Markus Ristola – £200,367
6. Chris Bjorin – £150,267
7. Antoine Saout – £114,228
8. Matt Hawrilenko – £87,074
9. James Akenhead – £66,533

Saout and Akenhead are both members of the 2009 November Nine. The WSOPE final table featured 6 former bracelet winners.

Shulman had these words for his son Jeff: “I did my part. Now, you do your part. It’s your turn to win.”

Photo: flipchip • lasvegasvegas.com

Follow all of our WSOP coverage here, including live coverage of the WSOP final table.

Shulman, who’s made WSOP news in the past few months with his vociferous criticism of the WSOP (specifically of how Harrah’s runs the event), including a pledge to throw the Main Event bracelet into the garbage if he won, made the announcement yesterday in an article on CardPlayer.

“Phil just has such a way of thinking about winning that I knew he would be a great resource,” said Shulman. “We’re going to talk about final-table strategy, analyze the tapes, and work on my own play.”

“I turned on the TV and I was watching Tiger Woods or something, and I realized — every single player has a coach,” said Shulman. “No matter how good or bad my game is, it can always get better.”

The deal with Hellmuth is no doubt a good one for Shulman, who for the record is no tournament slouch, with career winnings that exceed 99% of the poker-playing population and a deep well of WSOP experience – in fact, he’s the only person at the table with WSOP final table experience (he took 7th in 2000).

No word on the terms of the deal.

Also likely pleased with the deal: ESPN, who just had a new story line dropped neatly into their laps, something they’ll no doubt be grateful for when frantically assembling the final table episodes of the WSOP. Possibly pleased: Ultimate Bet, assuming Phil gets some jersey time snuck into the broadcast.

For all of our WSOP 2009 coverage, click here.

Phil Hellmuth plays at Ultimate Bet. Don’t sign up for an account at UB – learn how you could get 30% rakeback first.

Where In The World Is Phil Ivey?
More than any WSOP in recent memory, 2009 has been the year of the pro, with bracelets largely ending up in the hands of established players, both live and online. That trend continued in a big way when one of the biggest names in poker – Phil Ivey – made the final table of the Main Event.

Early chatter was that Phil’s presence among the November Nine would result in a marketing bonanza, even a new wave of interest in poker similar to the Moneymaker effect that drove the online poker boom in the earlier part of the decade. While the final table will certainly attract more attention with Phil on it than without Phil, he’s been essentially MIA since play concluded in July.

Given his low-key persona and apparent distaste for self-marketing, it’s no surprise that Ivey has stayed below the radar, but it will be interesting to see if pressure from Harrah’s and Full Tilt Poker forces him out into the spotlight as the final table approaches, and also interesting to see how Ivey responds to that pressure.

…And How Much Will He Win?
Ivey sidebets on the WSOP are quickly becoming the stuff of legend, and we’d expect speculation on the GDP-of-a-small-country-esque totals of his side action to heat up as November approaches.

What’s confirmed is a side bet with Dwan worth a million if Ivey wins and another side bet with Andy Bloch worth two million if Ivey wins. That’s on top of the bonus he’d likely receive from FTP if he wins. All in all, a Main Event win could easily be worth over $20 million to Ivey – and it will be interesting to track action rumors that will undoubtedly pop up in the weeks to come.

WWJSD?
What will Jeff Shulman do? That’s the question on a lot of minds following Jeff’s fairly public outbursts back in July. It’s no secret that the CardPlayer editor has little love for Harrah’s and the WSOP, an attitude stemming from an assortment of grievances regarding how Harrah’s treats both the players and the media, but even those with first-hand knowledge of Jeff’s antipathy were still surprised when he announced his plans for the Main Even bracelet should he win:

“If by renounce it you mean throw it in the garbage, then yes.”

While there hasn’t been much from Jeff on the issue as of late, there’s not much reason to believe his attitude has changed. Expect him to use the WSOP as a bully pulpit to advocate his views on how the tournament should be run, and expect him to become even more vociferous if Harrah’s tries to tamp him down.

The Man Who Can’t Be Bought
With the new rule for 2009 that limited sponsors to three players max at the final table, everyone thought the question would be how high the bidding war for chipleader Darvin Moon would go.

Moon ended the suspense pretty early on by saying that he’d never played a hand of poker online and didn’t intend to rep for a room. Stars and FTP got the message and snapped up three other player apiece (complete WSOP sponsorship breakdown here), but in the sponsor-driven world of tournament poker, Moon’s choice stands out and will make for an interesting and oft-repeated narrative point as the tournament approaches.

Of course, every time someone mentions that Moon didn’t sign with an online poker room like Stars or Full Tilt, those rooms will be getting some exposure for not getting exposure, so congratulations to them on the backdoor sponsorship. It will also be interesting to see if a mainstream sponsor can twist Moon’s arm into shilling for them at the final table and, if so, what the price for his patch will be.

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The big difference: World Series of Poker Communications Director Seth Palansky told CardPlayer that the $40,000 buy in event, introduced in 2009 in conjunction with the WSOPs 40th anniversary, will not be returning in 2010. “Next year, you’re not going to have a Champions Invitational. You’re not going to have a $40K for the 40th-annual event,” said Palansky. “Both events probably come back 10 years from now, when we’re celebrating 50 years. We announced them and intended them as one-off specials.”

The WSOP may decide to introduce a larger buy in event to keep pace with other high-buy in offerings from the WPT, APT and others, but it looks like (for now) the HORSE event will be the largest buy in for 2010 at 50k.

Speaking of that event, Palansky also told CardPlayer that it’s unlikely to return to television in 2010 unless players agree to change the final table format to be strictly no limit holdem. “Unless it goes back to no-limit hold’em, the event will exist, but the television component probably will not,” said Palansky.

The other big change reportedly in the works: more $1,000 buy in tournaments, a level that was immensely popular in 2009 when it was promoted as a ‘Stimulus Special’. As the WSOP seeks to keep attendance (and revenue) growing, expect to see more of these dotting the schedule, possibly at the expense of mid buy in or less-popular formats.

Looking to qualify for WSOP 2010? Get started by choosing which room is better – PokerStars or Full Tilt Poker.