Countdown to the 2009 World Series of Poker final table: 7 days out

 

Unless you have avoided anything that deals with the word poker since mid-July, you are well aware that the biggest story of the 2009 WSOP is Phil Ivey. Ivey’s appearance at the final table would make major headlines by itself, but Phil’s final table performance will be just one piece of his 2009 WSOP puzzle.

If Jeff Lisandro hadn’t gone off at the WSOP –winning three bracelets—Ivey would have already been the #1 story of 2009 without his Main Event final table: Ivey won two bracelets at the WSOP this year bringing his total to seven.

Ivey has a lot of work to do at the final table, possessing just fewer than 10,000,000 chips, to catch chip leader Darvin Moon’s 59,000,000 chips. But we have seen this story play out before, quite recently in fact: In 2005 Joe Hachem entered the final table as a short-stack, and went on to win the event; and in 2007 Jerry Yang hit an unbelievable run of cards to go from short-stack to champion.

If Ivey is able to double up, and get to around 20,000,000 chips, it will change the entire complexion of the final table, and the other players are well aware of that, which could allow Ivey to slowly build up his stack if the other players avoid all-in confrontations in an effort to avoid doubling-up Phil.

Previous entries: 10 days out: 9 days out: 8 days out