Jonathan Duhamel Will Be Chip Leader of World Series of Poker Main Event When Action Resumes in November

Published on July 18th, 2010 9:21 am EST

Day 8 of the World Series of Poker main event was a long and grueling day, but the 2010 "November Nine" has finally been set.

Day 8 of the main event began at 12 pm local time on Saturday afternoon, and ended up wrapping up at around 5:45 am on Sunday morning.

The "November Nine" bubble ended up lasting nearly six hours as the short stacks at the 10-handed table just refused to die. In the end, Brandon Steven ended up as the "November Nine" bubble boy, bowing out of the tournament in 10th place ($635,011).

These are the end-of-day chip counts as of right now, but there will likely be some small changes when the numbers are finalized:

Jonathan Duhamel - 55,375,000
John Dolan - 45,300,000
Joseph Cheong - 23,700,000
John Racener - 21,100,000
Filippo Candio - 19,850,000
Michael Mizrachi - 16,800,000
Soi Nguyen - 9,800,000
Matthew Jarvis - 9,625,000
Jason Senti - 8,475,000





After Pascal LeFrancois was eliminated in 11th place, play became VERY tight. Some players essentially just shut down (Filippo Candio), while others were able to take advantage (at least a bit) and chip up. Overall, nobody was overly aggressive when play became 10-handed.

The most impressive performance of the day belonged to John Dolan, who will enter the final table second in chips. Dolan entered Day 8 as one of the short stacks (a little over 2 million in chips), but ended the day with over 45 million in chips.

After a couple of all-in confrontations that didn't result in an elimination, the final hand of Day 8 finally went down at around 5:45 am.

Brandon Steven, who was the short stack, decided to push all-in over top of a Duhamel pre-flop raise. Matthew Jarvis called and Duhamel folded.

The two players flipped over:

Brandon Steven - Ac-Ks
Matthew Jarvis - Qs-Qc

The board ran out 4h-3d-10c-4c-5h, and Brandon Steven was eliminated in 10th place.

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Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi has also made the 2010 World Series of Poker final table.

Mizrachi has had a dream run in this year's World Series of Poker. He started things off with a victory in the $50k Poker Player's Championship for $1,559,046, and followed this up with two more final table appearances ($10k Limit Hold'em Championship, $10k Seven Card Stud Championship). Now, with his main event final table appearance secured, Grinder will have an unbelievable four final table appearances in just one year.

If Mizrachi ends up winning the main event this year, then he will have a little over $17.7 million in total lifetime tournament cashes. This would rocket Mizrachi past everybody on the all-time money list, as Phil Ivey is currently sitting in the top spot with around $13.5 million. If Mizrachi ends up finishing in first or second place in the main event, then he will pass Ivey on the all-time money list.

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All of the "November Nine" participants are guaranteed at least $811,823 for making it this far, with the eventual winner of the event taking home $8,944,138. In addition, all nine players will be sure to receive some hefty sponsorship deals from the likes of Pokerstars and Full Tilt Poker.

We'll have more on the main event in the days ahead. Congratulations to 2010's "November Nine".


Photo: GreasieWheels

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Filed Under: The World Series of Poker