Home / Poker News October 2012 / 2012 WSOP October Nine Showdown Kicks Off Today
2012 WSOP October Nine Showdown Kicks Off Today
Posted by: James Carter. - Tue, 2012-10-30 03:38
Today is a special day for the poker world, given that the most important poker event of 2012, the final table of the
WSOP Main Event kicks off today. Nine finalists have made it to this stage of the poker tournament, securing their seats on the biggest poker stage about three and half months ago.
Known as the Octo-Nine, the group is headed by Jesse Sylvia, the chip leader, who is statistically the most likely to go all the way and win the title. Sylvia will essentially be attempting to pull the same feat Jonathan Duhamel managed to pull when he started the final table with the largest stack. Interestingly enough, although always mathematical favorites, start of the day chip leaders haven’t really done well statistically over the years. Dennis Phillips started the action with the largest stack in 2008, Darvin Moon in 2009 and Martin Staszko in 2011. None of these guys managed to go all the way though.
Second in chips is Andras Koroknai, the player whose path to the final showdown has been marred by quite a bit of controversy over a hand involving Gaelle Baumann, which came down to a controversial decision by WSOP officials.
Greg Merson, the player third in chips carries a bit of baggage himself into the Octo-Nine showdown, although his is of a different nature: he started playing poker early and he got into money. One thing led to another and he found himself struggling with drug addiction. He did manage to get his life back on the right track though, and now he’s looking at the opportunity to forever etch his name into the poker history books.
If Jake Balsinger won, he would become the youngest WSOP Main Event champion in history. He’s got some steep odds to overcome though, being the second shortest stack.
