"World Series of Poker": Shuffle up and deal

When two players remain, they will begin the following evening and continue to Nov. 11. Hence, if a winner is declared after midnight, ESPN can call it same-day coverage.

“One of the reasons the change was made was to bring new excitement to all things poker,” said Jamie Horowitz, (pictured right), who produces the WSOP on ESPN. “It wasn’t just that we thought it would bring higher ratings, but we believed it would create the biggest night in poker. It has created conversation, debate and analysis in the poker community.”

From a production standpoint, this is revolutionary. Normally poker can take hours, if not days, to complete. Once a tournament is complete, editors choose the best hands, commentators add their voiceover and an hourlong broadcast is put together.

For Tuesday’s two-hour final table, tape will shuttled back and forth between the Rio's poker room and ESPN’s editing bay while announcers Lon McEachern and Norman Chad deliver their comments immediately.

“We’ve never done anything like this before,” Horowitz said. “What we normally do in a month we’re doing in a day.”

As for the final nine competitors, Chad handicaps who might take home the winner’s bracelet, and a whole lot of cash:

Kelly Kim
Has to feel like he’s on a free roll — he was the short stack when they got down to 10 players — but that doesn’t mean he’ll play recklessly. In fact, with a big gallery of friends and family on hand, he’ll probably play it snug. You don’t wait 117 days and bring all your supporters into town to go bust in 15 minutes.
 
Craig Marquis
He played smart, small-pot poker to get here. I like him because he stood up to Tiffany Michelle late in the Main Event. And I like him because he started playing in January 2007 after going to a New Year’s Eve party and realizing how much money Tom Dwan and David Benefield were making at cards. On New Year’s Eve, most people just get silly and make stupid resolutions.
 
David Rheem
He could go out first or he could end up first. He’s not afraid to mix it up, he goes with his reads and he’ll risk it all early if the spot feels right. Even when he bluffs off most of his stack, he has a great ability to not let the moment destroy him. He’ll brush it off and move on. And, of course, most of the established pros are rooting for him.
 
Darus Suharto
At 39, the second-oldest player left in the field, which speaks to the youthful state of no-limit tournament hold ’em in 2008. He’s quiet, respectful and a big fan of fellow Canadian Daniel Negreanu. Plus, he’s a CPA. The last time an unknown accountant won the Main Event, it set off a poker boom. Nobody would mind a second boom, or at least a boomlet.
 
Ylon Schwartz
He once was a top-flight chess player. I give him a point for that. He says if he wins the Main Event, he wants to go somewhere no one will find him “like Tim Robbins in ‘Shawshank Redemption.’” He gets another point there. He’s smart and strange — you’ve got to fear the smart, strange ones — and he’ll wait for others to make mistakes at the table,

Peter Eastgate
Ah, to be young, fearless and playing for $9.1 million. In Europe, the poker community talks about uber-aggressive Scandinavian players like Eastgate. He’s calm and icy at the table as he continues to shove big bets into the middle. Like many online young guns, his modus operandi is to keep putting opponents to tough decisions for most of their chips. Pressure, pressure, pressure. It seems to work.

Scott Montgomery
Another improbable product of the now-famed University of Waterloo poker factory in Canada. If it’s such a good engineering school, how come everyone there is playing cards? Montgomery describes his playing style as “psychotically insane,” and that might be an understatement. He doesn’t play position, he plays preposterously. He can’t help getting all his money in with the worst of it, and he’s forever good-natured about it.
 
Ivan Demidov
Here’s a calendar-year feat for you: Making the WSOP Main Event final table and the WSOP Europe Main Event final table. That’s a stunning double. In recent years, Russians are making a bigger impact in poker. Demidov is seldom recklessly aggressive like other twentysomethings. Rather, he’s smart and measured and overcomes his lack of live tournament experience with a steady countenance and solid reads.
 
Dennis Phillips
Perhaps no player could be more negatively affected by the 117-day final-table delay. When play was halted in July, Phillips was in a zone. He was running hot and reading well, getting all the right cards and pushing all the right buttons. Poker is a streaky game, and he was on a weeklong streak. Heck, 3½ months later, he might not even be able to find his St. Louis Cardinals baseball cap.