It took a few weeks and thousands of players but the 2010 WSOP has finally been narrowed down to a elite group of nine. The nine will play the final round of poker in November on television. Apparently, even today with the popularity of poker, main stream media still doesn’t get why anyone would want to watch all 57 events of the WSOP on TV; but hey, at least we get this final table.

Here’s the lineup:
Filippo Candio

Joseph Cheong

John Dolan

Jonathan Duhamel

Matthew Jarvis

Michael Mizrachi

Soi Nguyen

John Racener

Jason Senti

The final event of the WSOP consisted of good old fashioned No Limit Texas Holdem which, despite the numerous variations that exist in poker, remains the most popular way to play our favorite game of skill. Perhaps the popularity of Holdem was why there were over seven thousand entrants into this year’s events and 1,125 folks who handed over their $10,000 buy in for one last chance at gold.

The week long final event of the tournament cut down around 200 players at the end of every day. Early leaders quickly faded into non existence and major celebrity players didn’t make it to the final table. One of my personal old favorites and former champions, Greg Raymer left the competition on the very first day, in the very first plays. Poker is mostly a game of skill but the final game of the WSOP also reminds us that luck still plays a role in who wins the big one.

Michael Mizrachi seems to be having quite a tournament having already won the Player’s Championship. He’s my current favorite to win in November. As play ended for the four month break Jonathan Duhamel led the chip lead with 65,975,000 according to the WSOP homepage and Jason Sneti came in last place with 7,625,000.

We all know things could change quickly in the first round of play and I for one can’t wait for that final table to get underway.