2016 WSOP November Nine Reached In Las Vegas

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Wednesday, July 20th, 2016 | Written by Lucy Brown

The World Series of Poker is the game’s most popular tournament series, and each year thousands of players from all around the US and the rest of the world arrive in Las Vegas hoping to win a coveted gold bracelet, or two. The 47th Annual World Series of Poker proved no exception, either, and its 69 event schedule succeeded in attracting 107,833 players, up by 4.2% compared to the previous year, and marking just the second year in which more than 100,000 people attended the annual live poker festival.

Headlining the WSOP is its $10,000 buy-in No Limit Hold’em Main Event, which this year attracted 6,737 entries, up by 5% from 2015, and resulting in a massive prize pool of $63,327,800. The Main Event subsequently got underway on Saturday, July 9th, and after three starting days and a further six whole days of action, the 2016 November Nine has now been set. The players will now go on a three month break before returning to the Rio in Las Vegas on October 30th to play down to this year’s ultimate champion. Following the November Nine being reached, WSOP Executive Director Ty Stewart said:

“It’s bittersweet to close up poker’s version of the Olympics after such a successful and rewarding summer. We will get to work planning a bigger and better World Series of Poker in 2017 and on behalf of the entire WSOP team, thank all the players for making the 2016 version of this event the smoothest in our history.”

Final Table Chip Counts:

1: Cliff Josephy (USA) – 75m
2: Qui Nguyen (USA) – 68.075m
3: Gordon Vayo (USA) – 50.45m
4: Kenny Hallaert (Belgium) – 43.325m
5: Michael Ruane (USA) – 29.8m
6: Vojtech Ruzicka (Czech) – 27.45m
7: Griffin Benger (Canada) – 26.175m
8: Jerry Wong (USA) – 10.325m
9: Fernando Pons (Spain) – 6.225m

All finalists at the 2016 WSOP Main Event are guaranteed a minimum of $1 million each for their deep runs. Nevertheless, all players will instead have their sights firmly focused on the $8 million prize awaiting the eventual champion, as well as the opportunity to be immortalized in the WSOP’s history book.

Meet The November Nine

Headlining this year’s November Nine is also one of the game’s greatest ambassadors, Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy. As well as running his own poker training school, the 50 year-old pro also has 2-WSOP bracelets and $2,641,620 in live earnings to his name, as well as a further $4,120,232 in online winnings.

Canada’s Griffin Benger also has an impressive poker pedigree having notched up $1,386,295 in live earnings, and $6,491,997 online using the screen name “Flush_Entity”. Interestingly, Benger won a seat through to the Main Event via an online satellite, and after making the final table, the 31 year-old pro said:

“I wasn’t going to come play the Main Event unless I won a package, and I sort of decided last-minute to register to play the tournament because I find those satellite to be great. Check them out on 888poker. It all just worked out. I steam-rolled through the final three tables of the satellite and got there. Locked it up pretty easily.”

Other November Niners with impressive live tournament winnings includes Jerry Wong ($1,317,539), Vojtech Ruzicka ($1,149,027), and Gordon Vayo ($974,714). The November Niners will relatively less experience includes Qui Nguyen ($52,986); Michale Ruane ($44,962); and Spain’s Fernando Pons ($20,653), who works as an accounts manager, but plays online poker in his spare time a few hours each day. As the 37 year-old commented after reaching the final table:

“Right now I’m on a cloud. I want to thank everyone who has supported me, friends, family, everyone who does not know me but who has supported me from all Spain. Thank you very much everyone.. There was person who told me that I was an example for all working parents and husbands.. I am regularly in .es rooms, but I do not play for many hours.”

Final Table Payouts:

1st: $8,000,000
2nd: $4,658,452
3rd: $3,451,175
4th: $2,574,808
5th: $1,934,579
6th: $1,463,906
7th: $1,250,000
8th: $1,100,000
9th: $1,000,000

Some Main Event Statistics

The youngest player to play in this year’s WSOP Main Event was 21 year old Evan House-Hull from Illinois, whilst its oldest participant was 95-year-old William Wachter from New York. In the meantime, the last woman standing was Gaelle Baumann who also held the honor in 2012 after being eliminated in 10th place for $590,442. This year, the French pro finished in 102nd for which she received a payout of $49,108.

Other big name pros making deep runs at the 2016 Main Event included the 2013 winner of the $111,111 WSOP One drop High Roller Tony Gregg in 50th, Chris Klodnicki in 45th, the 2014 WSOP Big One for One Drop winner Dan Colman in 31st, 2-times bracellet winner Paul Volpe in 29th, Tom Marchese in 14th, and James Obst in 13th ($427,930).