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Gone Til November

Well before midnight Wednesday night Darvin Moon eliminated Jordan Smith to put the world's most prestigous poker tournament on hold until November. Phil Ivey is one of your November Nine.
Jul 16 2009 03:55 AM ESTLance Bradley
Gone Til November

The November Nine are on a 115-day break and the chipleader is a logger from Maryland who plans on going back to his day-job. He's got the biggest stack but not the biggest name of the November Nine, part deux.

Phil Ivey, considered by most to be the best player in the world, is also in the mix and though he's only got 9,765,000 in chips, he's the name that everybody will talk about the players reconvene in November.

Here are the chip counts of the November Nine:

1. Darvin Moon - 58,930,000
2. Eric Buchman - 34,800,000
3. Steven Begleiter - 29,885,000
4. Jeff Shulman - 19,580,000
5. Joseph Cada - 13,215,000
6. Kevin Schaffel - 12,390,000
7. Phil Ivey - 9,765,000
8. Antoine Saout - 9,500,000
9. James Akenhead - 6,800,000

Moon's chip lead is thanks largely to monstrous pots that resulted in the 12th place and 11th place finisher busting out.

First, with play down to two tables, he eliminated Billy Kopp by flopping a better flush than Kopp in a pot worth 45,000,000. After a flop of Kd 9d 2d and a turn of 2h all the chips went in the middle with Kopp holding 5d 3d and Moon holding Qd Jd.

Then, with the final ten players all seated together Moon continued to run red hot getting into a pot with Jordan Smith. After Moon called a preflop raise from the button, Smith re-raised to 2,600,00 and Moon called. The two players saw a 8c 4d 2d flop, Smith checked and Moon bet 4,000,000. Smith moved all-in and Moon called instantly and tabled a set of eights. Smith showed pocket aces and when he was unable to improve on the turn or river he was the November Nine bubble boy.

The two shortest stacks belong to the only non-American players at the final table. England's James Akenhead is the shortest with 6,800,000 and France's Antoine Saout sits in eighth with 9,500,000.

For full video interviews with all of the November Nine stay tuned to WorldSeriesofPoker.com.