Main Event: The Grinder headlines the November Nine

After almost 18 gruelling hours the Day 8 is done, we have the new November Nine and the WSOP will return to the Rio Hotel & Casino in four months time to decide the new world champion. The contest will be fought mainly amongst unknown players save for one towering exception, Michael "Grinder" Mizrachi who has a once in a lifetime chance for poker immortality.

More than 6 weeks ago, the Grinder's WSOP got off to a perfect start with a win at the $50k Players Championship and now he is the last big name standing at the Main Event, returning in November with a decent stack and a great chance to end his WSOP even better than it started. He will face seven other pros and one amateur player (Soi Nguyen) but none of his opponents come even close to him in tournament experience; only John Racener has previously made two WSOP final tables and a little more than $1 million in tournament cashes while the others are relative unknowns.

Note: this is not the official chipcount but taken from the latest update:

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

Here's a recap of some noteworthy events on Day 8:

Johnny Lodden would have been one of the big stories in the November Nine but much to the dismay of every poker news editor the Norwegian pro became the first player to hit the rail on Day 8 when his pocket 8's couldn't win a race against Matt Affleck's AT.

The last Nordic player standing, William Thorson made moves at the wrong time and busted in 22nd place. After John Dolan opened for 375k and got called in two places, Thorson found JTs on the big blind and decided it was an excellent spot for a squeeze play (and of course it was, regardless of the result) and shoved for 5 million. To Thorson's dismay it turned out that the first caller, John Racener had been setting a trap with KK and he made the call. Thorson flopped a flush draw but didn't catch it in the end.

Scott Clements, owner of two WSOP bracelets and a WPT winner, ran his AQ into Matt Jarvis' AK and got no help from the board, busting in 18th place.

Matt Affleck made the 15th place at the WSOP Main Event in a 7,319 player field and was rewarded with $500,165 for his eight days work, but you have probably never seen anyone unhappier after winning half a million. The worst hand in Affleck's career started with Jonathan Duhamel's raise of 550k in the cutoff. Affleck made it 1.55m to go on the button. Duhamel 4-bet to 3.925m, Affleck called. Flop T97 rainbow, Duhamel checked, Affleck bet 5m, call. Turn Q, Duhamel checked again, Affleck went all-in for 11.6m. Duhamel tanked for a long time but he had outs even if he had indeed ran into a bigger pocket pair and finally he made the call with JJ. Affleck had AA and there was 42m in the middle. River was a card that Affleck will remember for a long time, an 8 that gave Duhamel his straight and sent a devastated Affleck to the rail. After the hand Duhamel had 51m and the chip lead. (Affleck's moment of agony pictured below.)

The experienced pro and WSOP Main Event finalist in 2000, Hasan Habib played an expert short stack game for two days before his luck finally ran out in 14th place, his A9 being no good against Racener's Ac Kc but in a dramatic fashion: the board ran Tc 9c 3 T... A, and Racener's king kicker played.

Adam "roothlus" Levy was the other crowd favorite as 12 players were left but his tournament ended when his shove with KQ ran into Duhamel's aces.

After Pascal LeFrancois busted in 11th place the remaining 10 players took seats at the last table with the following stacks (blinds at 150k/300k/ante 40k):

Jonathan Duhamel (49,350,000)
Joseph Cheong (39,305,000)
John Racener (32,625,000)
John Dolan (24,550,000)
Matthew Jarvis (20,075,000)
Soi Nguyen (17,415,000)
Filippo Candio (13,260,000)
Jason Senti (12,495,000)
Michael Mizrachi (7,780,000)
Brandon Steven (3,305,000)

Steven had just 2.5m or so left when the chips were in the middle for the first time. Duhamel opened for 750k, both Steven and Mizrachi called on the blinds. Flop J86 rainbow, Steven shoved for 1.855m, Mizrachi called, Duhamel got out of the way. Steven had QJs and Mizrachi's only answer was an A8s that found no help on later streets. Mizrachi got his chips right back in the next hand when he called Jarvis' river bet of 1.8m on a board of Q97 Q T and his AT was good.

The clock was ticking five in the morning and the game went on and on. While Michael made good progress and more than doubled his original stack to 17 million his brothers celebrated in the stands by ordering pizzas.

Finally there was some big time action but with no end result: first Steven and Jarvis split it with AK's, and moments later Filippo Candio's tournament life was at stake but he found an easy double-up with AA vs Racener's AKs.

Level 35 came to an end and blinds went up to 250k/500k/ante 50k. Four players were sitting with less than 20bb stacks and finally it was time for decisive action. The unlucky one was Brandon Steven who shoved on top of Duhamel but got a call from Jarvis. Duhamel folded and the cards were turned over:

Steven AK
Jarvis QQ

The board ran 43T 4... 5, and after 17 hours and 40 minutes the game was finally decided and the Rio erupted in cheers and hugs for all but one player.

For a reminder, here is what the players will be battling for:

1st place –     $8,944,138
2nd place –    $5,545,855
3rd place –    $4,129,979
4th place –    $3,092,497
5th place –    $2,442,960
6th place –    $1,772,939
7th place –    $1,356,708
8th place –    $1,045,738
9th place –     $811,823