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Final table is set at 2019 World Series of Poker Main Event13 July 2019PRESS RELEASE -- The 50th annual World Series of Poker (WSOP) $10,000 No-Limit Hold’em Championship – commonly referred to as the Main Event – is down to its final nine players. Each of the nine finalists is guaranteed at least $1,000,000 in prize money. The WSOP Main Event Final Table is all that remains of the massive field of 8,569 players from 87 different nations, who entered the iconic tournament beginning 3 July seeking poker’s most coveted title, a top prize of $10,000,000 and the Jostens-encrusted gold and diamond bracelet. The final nine players represent six different countries – Canada, Germany, Italy, Serbia, the United Kingdom and the United States. The players will return to the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino tomorrow at 6:30 p.m. to vie for poker’s ultimate trophy – a WSOP gold bracelet – and the lion’s share of the Main Event’s $80,548,600 total prize pool in front of live TV cameras in primetime on ESPN/ESPN2. The winner will receive a guaranteed first-place prize of $10,000,000, with the other eight players sharing another $20,825,000. The WSOP Main Event Final Table and their respective seat assignments and chip counts are as follows: Seat 1 – Hossein Ensan – 177,000,000 Chips - CHIP LEADER Hossein Ensan is a 55-year-old Iranian-German poker pro who has enjoyed increasing success on the global poker scene in recent years. Ensan emigrated from his native Iran to Germany in 1990 and began traveling and competing in poker tournaments around 2004, though it wasn't until 2013 that he began booking significant cashes. He still describes himself as a poker amateur, just as he once described himself as a “simple painter,” his former occupation, following his breakthrough performances earlier this decade. Ensan has one daughter and travels frequently to his native Iran. Ensan's career-best performance is a victory for €754,510, worth about US $825,000. Also of note is Ensan's win at the 2017-18 WSOP International Circuit stop at Kings Casino in Rozvadov, Czech Republic, where he topped a 672-entry main event field to collect €184,812, about US $220,000. Seat 2 – Nick Marchington – 20,100,000 Chips Nick Marchington is a 21-year old poker professional who dropped out of college where he was pursuing a Computer Science degree. He has one recorded tournament cash. It’s from the $800 No-Limit Hold’em Deepstack event earlier this summer at the WSOP. He finished in 18th place, earning $12,415. He is from Hornchurch, Essex in the United Kingdom and currently lives in London. His favorite football team is West Ham United. Seat 3 – Dario Sammartino – 33,400,000 Chips Dario Sammartino is a 32-year old poker professional with $3,446,357 in career WSOP tournament winnings. He has 38 WSOP cashes, his biggest cash coming from the $111,111 High Roller for One Drop in 2017. He won $1,608,295. He has three third place finishes in WSOP events and his best Main Event finish was in 2017, when he finished 43rd. He learned poker after his grandfather passed away. His father taught him as a way to help him cope with the loss. He is a former Starcraft player and a regular on the poker high-roller scene. Seat 4 – Kevin Maahs – 43,000,000 Chips Chicago's Kevin Maahs is a r27-year-old elatively new player on the WSOP scene, but he's making a big imprint on the Series in one of his first poker trips to Las Vegas. The 27-year-old Maahs had logged only one prior WSOP cash before his deep run here, a 169th-place finish for $1,230 in a big-field, multi-flight WSOP Circuit Horseshoe Hammond (Indiana) event in February 2019. Maahs, though, is an increasing poker presence on the Midwest poker scene, having logged a live-career best $20,625 cash last September. Seat 5 – Timothy Su – 20,200,000 Chips Timothy Su is a 25 year old software engineer from Boston, MA. Before this year’s WSOP, Su had two cashes for $1,540. This is his first Main Event and he was the chip leader of his Day 2 flight as well as at the end of Day 5. Originally from Allentown, PA, Su is a fan of Philadelphia sports teams. He is currently working as part of a 15-person startup in Boston called Canopy. He plays three instruments, the piano, the violin, and the oboe. He loves Tchaikovsky and enjoys playing classical music. Su said, “there are a lot of parallels between music, poker and software in terms of taking liberties in choosing what you think is correct.” He says his proudest moment is completing a 100-mile bike ride. Seat 6 – Zhen Cai – 60,600,000 Chips Florida's Zhen Cai is a full-time pot-limit Omaha cash-game pro who only occasionally finds time to participate in tournaments, though his 2019 run may change that. Cai, a former casino employee, is usually found in Florida's plentiful cardrooms, though he makes occasional poker trips elsewhere, such as the WSOP. The 35-year-old Cai, a resident of Lake Worth, Florida, has logged occasional WSOP cashes dating all the way back to 2010. Cai is also a WSOP Circuit ring winner, having won Event #5: $565 No-Limit Hold'em, at the 2010-11 WSOP Circuit Regional Championship at Harrah's New Orleans (Louisiana). That effort was worth $33,753, second among all his live cashes. Cai has also received mentoring from his good friend, Tony Miles, who finished second in the WSOP Main Event in 2018. Seat 7– Garry Gates – 99,300,000 Chips Poker-industry veteran Garry Gates has enjoyed increasing success on the felt in addition to his regular behind-the-tables career. Gates began in poker as a live reporter, quickly advanced to becoming a live-reporting manager, and for the past several years has worked as an events manager and senior consultant for player affairs for an online poker site. The 37-year-old Gates lives in Henderson, Nevada when not traveling the globe. Gates is also a survivor of the horrific 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas in which 58 other concert-goers lost their lives. Gates, a native of Titusville, Pennsylvania, has participated in the Main Event for the past decade, having made the money in both 2011 and 2017. The 2011 cash was for a 170th-place effort worth $47,107. Most of his career cashes have come in WSOP or WSOP Circuit events, with his prior career-best payday, $64,530, earned with a fourth-place finish in Circuit event in Atlantic City in 2012. Seat 8 – Milos Skrbic – 23,400,000 Chips Serbia's Milos Skrbic is a relative newcomer to the WSOP but has left his mark on the global live-poker scene in recent months. The 30-year-old Skrbic, who lives in Sremska Mitrovica in northwestern Serbia, has earned over $1.6 million in live poker tournaments. The vast majority of that total has come in 2018 and 2019. Skrbic broke through in a major way when he placed fifth in the Main Event at the 2018 World Series of Poker Europe, earning €241,718 (USD 275,054). He then earned his first seven-figure score later that year. Seat 9 – Alex Livingston – 37,800,000 Chips Canada's Alex Livingston is a full-time poker pro who splits his time between his native Halifax, Nova Scotia, and Las Vegas. The 32-year-old Livingston has made a deep run in the Main Event before, having finished 13th in the 2013 Main for a live-career best $451,398. This former chess champion learned poker as many do, via games with friends. He attended Tufts University in Boston, and he later acquired a pizzeria in North Brooklyn, part of New York City. Livingston, also enjoys golf and bowling and is a big fan of NBA basketball. The 32-year-old Livingston has participated at the WSOP since his early 20's and continues to proudly represent his native Canada at the tables. Robert Heidorn from Germany now living in the UK was the final table bubble boy this year, finishing in tenth place. Heidorn, 31, moved all-in with his remaining 9,100,000 chips in middle position with blinds at 500,000/1,000,000 with a 1,000,000 ante after looking down and seeing the King of Hearts and Queen of Hearts. Alex Livingston then shoved all-in for 26,200,000 holding a pocket pair of eights. The two were isolated and saw the flop come 9-8-7, giving Livingston three of a kind eights. The Jack of Diamonds on the turn provided Heidorn hope for a straight on the board, but the 5 of clubs on the river was no help and Heidorn was eliminated as play ended at 2:04 am in Las Vegas in Level 37, with 1 hour, 31 minutes and 35 seconds left. Heidorn walks away with a nice $800,000 consolation prize and the final table is now officially set. Prize money for the remaining nine spots is as follows: 1st place: $10,000,000 2nd place: $6,000,000 3rd place: $4,000,000 4th place: $3,000,000 5th place: $2,200,000 6th place: $1,850,000 7th place: $1,525,000 8th place: $1,250,000 9th place: $1,000,000 When play resumes Sunday the players will pick up with 1 hour, 31 minutes and 35 seconds remaining in Level 37. The blinds are at 500,000 and 1,000,000 with an 1,000,000 big blind ante. The button will be in Seat 1. The WSOP Main Event Final table television coverage airs Sunday on ESPN2. Action is on a 30-minute delay to conform to gaming regulations. TV coverage is as follows: · Sunday, July 14 – 7:00pm in Las Vegas (Playing from 9 players to 6 players) – ESPN2 · Monday, July 15 – 7:00pm in Las Vegas (Playing from 6 players to 3 players) – ESPN · Tuesday, July 16 – 6:00pm in Las Vegas (Playing from 3 players to a winner) -- ESPN The 2019 Main Event was part of what is going to go down as the largest-ever WSOP in terms of entrants in the 50-year history of the event. With five events remaining, a total of 181,458 players have thus far entered the events on this summer’s WSOP schedule, generating a total prize pool of $282,370,095. The 2019 WSOP Main Event was the second-largest in the tournament’s illustrious 50-year history, drawing 8,569 players from 87 nations, trailing only the 2006 edition. The average age of entrants in the event was 41.46 years old, with the oldest entrant, Flushing, New York resident Frank Passantino age 85, and the youngest, Erwin Wiechers, from Gouda, Netherlands, who turned 21 years old two days prior to when he began play on 5 July. 350 women competed in this year’s field, up 16% y-o-y. Jill Bryant from Aurora, Illinois was the last woman standing, finishing in 116th place good for $59,295.
Final table is set at 2019 World Series of Poker Main Event
is republished from CasinoVendors.com.
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