Tables turning: Finalists come into focus for poker tourney

The final table at the World Series of Poker's main event includes a logger from rural Maryland, a former Wall Street executive, an angry magazine editor, and one of the game's most successful players.

That's just about half of the group.

Nearly 11 hours of play Wednesday in the Rio's convention pavilion determined the nine-player final table in the World Series of Poker's $10,000 no-limit hold 'em world championship. The original field a week ago began with 6,494 competitors.

The final table, a mixed bag of experienced poker professionals and amateurs ranging in age from 21 to 51, are now on a four-month break.

The World Series of Poker resumes Nov. 7, this time inside the Rio's Penn & Teller Theater. The nine players will compete until a heads-up table of two is reached. The pair will come back Nov. 9 and play for the title. ESPN will broadcast final table play the next evening.

Every player at the final table is guaranteed at least $1.26 million. The winner takes home $8.55 million while the runner-up collects $5.18 million.

Some of the final nine players said the next four months will be an overabundance of attention and potential sponsorship opportunities. For others, the time off will translate into an opportunity to better their game. Some will watch the taped coverage of the main event on ESPN to see if they can pick up clues about their opponents.

"Study them? I don't know," said Phil Ivey of Las Vegas, easily the most recognizable name of the nine players. "I think they all know what they're doing. Anyone is capable of winning it."

Ivey, 33, has seven World Series of Poker individual event champion bracelets, 35 career cashes in the tournament and almost $3.5 million in career winnings. Two of his bracelets came this year. But Ivey had never made it to the final table in the main event.

"I'm just in a zone, playing really well," Ivey said.

He almost didn't survive Wednesday. Ivey entered play in fourth place. He quickly dropped to the bottom of the leader board, losing three successive pots worth some 10 million in tournament chips.

"I lost every hand I played," he said. "I got knocked down pretty quickly and just grinded my way back. I was just hanging around waiting for something good to happen."

Good things just seemed to fall into the lap of Darvin Moon, 45, who operates a logging business with his family in tiny Oakland, Md. The town claims on its Web site of having a population of 2,000 and being a place where you can "even order a milk shake made the old fashioned way."

Moon, who led in the chip count following Monday and Tuesday's sessions, emerged as the chip leader Wednesday evening in the final 90 minutes, when slow play was replaced by furious action that saw four players eliminated and the final table in place before midnight.

Moon eliminated Billy Kopp of Erlanger, Ky., in 12th place and, about 45 minutes, later sent Jordan Smith of College Station, Texas, to the rail as the last player cut from Wednesday's competition.

"Everybody at this table played way better than me," said Moon, who has almost 59 million in tournament chips, 24 million more than second-place Eric Buchman of Hewlett, N.Y. "Something is helping me. I'm just getting great cards."

Moon, who was making his first trip to Las Vegas, was looking forward to returning home to rural Maryland. Even the Rio is bit too big for his taste.

"This casino has more rooms and suites than our whole hometown has population," Moon said of the 2,520-room Rio. "I'm not used to this; I haven't left the building."

Moon played Wednesday wearing a nondescript polo shirt and a New Orleans Saints cap. Other players wore the logos of Internet poker sites. Moon doesn't expect that to change.

"I never played on the Internet and I told all those hackers ... to call my lawyer," Moon said. "I gave them his number."

Other players at the final are no less colorful.

Joseph Cada of Shelby Township, Mich., is 21 and won't turn 22 until after the main event concludes. Should he win, Cada, who now sits in fifth, would eclipse last year's champion, Peter Eastgate of Denmark, as the youngest player to win the main event. Eastgate was 22 when he won the main event.

Steven Begleiter, 47, from Chappaqua, N.Y., spent 24 years at Bear Stearns, where he was a member of the investment bank's management and compensation committees. He was with the firm when it collapsed in March 2008 as part of Wall Street's economic meltdown.

The 2009 final table has two non-Americans, as opposed to a year when four foreign players, including the eventual champion, were in the field.

The most controversial player at the table might be Jeff Shulman, editor of Card Player magazine. Shulman, 34, has cashed in 15 World Series of Poker events since 2000, including a seventh-place finish at the 2000 main event.

During play Wednesday, a Web site posting surfaced quoting Shulman as saying he would throw the World Series of Poker champion bracelet "in the garbage" if he won the main event. After qualifying for the final table, he didn't back down from the remarks.

"I don't wear jewelry and wouldn't wear a tacky bracelet like that," Shulman said, directing critical comments at the tournament management and Harrah's Entertainment, which owns the World Series of Poker. "It's not the same type of poker we used to play at Binion's. Corporate greed is killing it."

Poker insiders said the dispute stems from 2006, when Harrah's took the media rights to the tournament away from Card Player and awarded them to rival Bluff magazine.

World Series of Poker Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack steered clear of Shulman's remarks.

"(The final table's players) are now ambassadors to the game and the spotlight is going to be on them the next few months," Pollack said. "I expect people will rise to the occasion."

Contact reporter Howard Stutz at hstutz@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3871.