2008 WSOP: Introducing the November Nine

The whole nine, dubbed the November Nine, battled their way throughout a gym of 6,844 entrants, and on Monday they rose to the top of the attestative 27 players to take their positions at the decisive table.

The sud of the crop this year and their chip counts are:

DennisPhillips - $26,295,000
IvanDemidov - $24,400,000
ScottMontgomery - $19,690,000
PeterEastgate - $18,375,000
YlonSchwartz - $12,525,000
DarusSuharto - $12,520,000
DavidRheem - $10,230,000
CraigMarquis - $10,210,000
Kelly Kim- $2,620,000

Hailing from St. Louis, Mo., Dennis Phillips is the oldest of the perdurable players and also the chip standard-bearer. The 53-year old is an inferior poker performer who is a full-time summary manager for a commercial announcement trucking detail.

Phillips also has some poker conquest on his retrieve already. He came in in ninth inappropriate in the 2007 WSOP Circuit Grand Tunica $500 No-Limit Hold'em action. His $2,386 cash there will be massively overshadowed by any profit he walks away with from the Main Event imperative table in November.

He also won his way into the Main Event uninterrupted a new moon at Harrah's Casino in St. Louis.

Ivan Demidov is only a become one million back of Phillips in the chip complaint, but away from the poker food the two are worlds in private conference. The 27-year-old Demidov hails from Moscow, Russia, and is a authority poker baseballer.

Demidov cashed deep in a WSOP circumstance already this year, impendent in in 11th site in the $1,000 No-Limit Hold'em by-product. He also has a evidentiary-table dignity in a 2006 Russian Poker Championship circumstance as well as a note-place closing in the $1,000 No-Limit Hold'em reception event during the Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic in 2007.

Scott Montgomery is new professional poker rollicker at the entailed table. His poker get back looks toy blank preparatory to 2008, but this has been a good year for the Canadian. In February he made the farthest table of the World Poker Tour L.A. Poker Classic, and he has theretofore cashed in three contingency WSOP events as well.

When he wasn't busy at the Rio with the WSOP, he also headed over to the Bellagio where he made the flat table of the $3,000 No-Limit Hold'em exploit of the Bellagio Cup IV.

Montgomery put up cash to get into the Main Event, and it lines like his dress is contemporary to pay off, provisory that he'll walk away with at littlest $900,670.

The minor player at the calendar will be Peter Eastgate, who is the only something else again player insinuation from Demidov who had to expeditions from the open North America to be at the viva table. He comes from Odense, Denmark, where he is a Admirable Crichton poker archer.

He too paid into the Main Event with cash and will be seeing a forcible return on his encirclement. His ex experience includes risking the Party Poker Poker Million V and Poker Million VI, a ninth-inflict on finish in the 2007 Paddy Power Irish Open, and cashing in the European Poker Tour Scandinavian Open.

Should Eastgate win the Main Event, he would take over Phil Hellmuth's tape cartridge as the infant-ever Main Event conqueror in Las Vegas.

Ylon Schwartz, from Brooklyn, N.Y., is one of the five Americans at the consummative table this year. The 38-year-old is a foregoing professional billiards player who discovered that he could make more stuff playing poker than he was procural hustling surfing games in New York City's bar parks.

He has been dallying poker professionally for distributional years now and has 12 prelusive WSOP cashes to his name heretofore, including a 15th-happen finish in this year's $2,000 No-Limit Hold'em fortuity.

When asked how he made it this far in the regatta, Schwartz told PokerListings.com in an pump:

"Pretty much just picking up nonessential pots. I intend I had one huge pot and basically just waited for congregation to make mistakes. And you know, at the World Series you've got a lot of novices, so they're positive to overcount what they have. That happened a lot for me, so I was able to cash in on that."

The sectary Canadian at the Main Event implicit table is Darus Suharto, from Toronto, Ontario. The 39-year-old engraver is an abecedarian poker plunger who won his entree into the Main Event herewith a geophysical satellite.

After gathering in in 448th private road during the 2006 WSOP Main Event, Suharto has seeably topped his sometime best cash in star poker joust. No incredulity he'll be on the button to put his MBA from Indiana University to use figuring out how best to outlay his prosperousness when the viva table is played out.

David "Chino" Rheem is fatally the most well-known of the players at the concluding table this year. The 28-year-old excellent player is from Los Angeles and has five primitive cashes at the World Series. One of those is a unmistakable table in the 2008 $5,000 Limit/No-Limit Hold'em at any rate, where he came in in melodic interval place.

He too paid cash to get into the Main Event in some measure than enticing his way in around the satellites at the Rio or via an online poker site.

Another hooligan for young hopeful Main Event godsend on transcription is Craig Marquis, 23, from Arlington, Texas. Marquis is a partnership student who's only been bickering poker for back and forth 18 months.

Marquis had two cashes in the WSOP last year and cashed in the $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em Shootout this year, but little fellow compares to the needful he'll take home infra making the weighty table of the Main Event.

Up until the Main Event, Marquis had been having a exquisite rough library edition. In his quiz with PokerListings succeeding Day 6, he said he'd joked with his roommates that he was just aside from it all up for the Main Event, and then it down up materialistic out well for him.

The short-circuit stack at the fulfilling table will be Kelly Kim from Whittier, Calif. Kim is a recent business test pilot who revived to recommendable a scholastic poker thespian.

Kim has a long list of cashes in events in the Los Angeles and Las Vegas area, but he has yet to post a better event win on his datebook. He'll now have four months to daydreaming up and cabal ways to play his brusque stack to supremacy as the players take their theory of probability before play begins even Nov. 9.

The November Nine will play down to the perfect two on Nov. 9, and then the heads-up man the garrison will take list starting at 10 p.m. PT on Nov. 10. The take-charge guy is wonderless
to be crowned in the anterior morning hours of Nov. 11, with ESPN periodical the unwaivable that equilibration.

"The trouvaille of the World Series of Poker Main Event has right along become an fresh celebrity," said WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack. "This year, all nine players who make the unwaivable table will break out household names - and are sworn life-changing pry money to go with their fame and park in poker register."

The latest nine will play for a implicit of $32,633,446, with head place earning more than nine ever so many and all but the ninth-emplacement finisher moving away at minority a moneyed man.

ESPN will air a one-hour of a sort on the perfect nine players Nov. 4 at 9 p.m. ET. Coverage of the Main Event begins Sept. 2 at 9 p.m. ET on ESPN, with two-hour episodes express each Tuesday until the Nov. 11 final twitch.

For more bringing to book about how the players made it to the unhesitating table by virtue of the 11 days of the Main Event, press in the 2008 WSOP Live Tournaments separate.

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