Last night the WSOP Main Event starting field of 6,494 players was narrowed down to those 9 who will share the Main Event glory; best known as the 'November Nine'.

I really liked the way Gary Wise covered the November Nine story for ESPN so I am going to post some lines from him below:

"You're going to hear a lot about July 15 for the next three-plus months. You're going to hear about the quest for $8.5 million. You're going to hear about a reclusive logger with almost $60 million. You're going to hear one man's comments questioning the value of the WSOP bracelet. You're going to hear about the biggest star in the poker world playing for poker's biggest prize. You're going to hear about the November Nine."

Wasn't that good writing? Now to continue I am going to introduce you to 2009's November Nine (in no specific order).

Darvin Moon: Darvin Moon is the current chip leader, holding over one quarter of all the chips in play. Moon claims that he does not care about the money and fame, he just wants to play poker. Probably, he was the more unlikely player to lead the November Nine to the final table. "What were there, 6,400 players in this tournament?" Moon asked. "I'd guess about 6,300 of them are better poker players than I am." Well, Darvin, apparently they were not as you are the proud chip leader.

Jeff Shulman: This name might ring some bells as he is the editor of Card Player Magazine. Shulman became the most controversial name at the table after claiming he will throw the bracelet in the garbage if he wins it.

"It has nothing to do with [Card Player no longer having exclusive rights to WSOP coverage]," he said. "It's about my lack of respect for the WSOP and the management here and what they've done to the players. That said, I still wouldn't wear it if I was best friends with them." If the WSOP is that bad Jeff, why would you pay $10,000 to be part of it? Maybe he already gave a partial answer to my question: "If I win, I'll never play at the Rio or WSOP again."

Joe Cada: The 21 year-old player at the final table has a chance to break Peter Eastgate's record for the youngest champion this year. Perhaps Cada is unknown in the live arena but he claims he has been playing poker professionally since he was 17 (mostly online). Perhaps we will see this young boy rise as a star pretty soon.

Eric Buchman: Buchman is not unknown to the live tournament circuit, he has 9 WSOP cashes and 4 WPT cashes. He is 28, from New York and with a very clear objective: I don't really care about getting recognition," Buchman said with a grim look on his face near the end of eight long days. "That doesn't really matter. I'm just here to win money."

Phil Ivey: A player who has been called the best poker player in the world by many fellow poker pros survived Day 8 to make it to the November Nine. He took two bracelets this year and this could become his third one. "You have no idea how bad I want this," said Ivey. The amount of fans rooting for him world-widely is massive and all of them have hopes up that he will win this event. He has the skill edge for sure, but he is short stacked.

Kevin Schaffel: The 51 poker player from Florida who has decided to get away from poker until he will be reunited with his fellow November Niners in three months. "I'm feeling unbelievable," he said. "I just got my text messages set at 1,500. I should have gone unlimited, because I'm going to go over that tonight. Right now, I'm not thinking about playing poker. I need to double up twice, and I'll be in the chip lead. I'll play golf. A lot of golf."

Steven Begleiter: This player had his whole family and friends assembled at the WSOP watching him play and giving him full support. He could barely give out interviews over the yells of "Begs! Begs! Begs!" coming from the rails. This could be his Cinderella story as he won his entry through a year-round, 20 person poker league called Newcastle Poker Tour.

James Akenhead: With the shortest stack of the table, this English pro is determined to win the bracelet.  "I really in my mind have two goals, and they're both the same thing -- to get the big prize and to win the tournament. To win, you have to be focused on coming first. The fame that comes with all this is obviously big, but I haven't thought too much about it. I'm just going to take it as it comes and focus on the poker."

Antoine Saout: It was only last October when this engineering student decided to take on poker full time. While French supporters had their hopes on Elky Grospellier and Ludovic Lacay, it is now Saout who carries the banner of one of Europe's powerhouse nations.

-Ems

Source: sports.espn.go