Hossein Ensan Leads the Main Event Final Table that Begins Sunday

Day 7 of the World Series of Poker $10,000 Main Event began with 35 players returning for the most important day of their poker careers – the playdown day to the final table. With $1 million locked up, nine players return on Sunday to play for the bracelet and $10 million.

Leading the final table is Hossein Ensan with an incredible 177 million, Garry Gates is second just under a 100 million and then it’s a long way to Zhen Cai’s 60 million stack. Kevin Maahs fronts the chase pack with Alex Livingston, Dario Sammartino and Milos Skrbic following. Timothy Su and Nick Marchington are the two short stacks with 20 million each.

Here’s how they’ll be seated at the final table:

1. Hossein Ensan – 177,000,000
2. Nick Marchington – 20,100,000
3. Dario Sammartino – 33,400,000
4. Kevin Maahs – 43,000,000
5. Timothy Su – 20,200,000
6. Zhen Cai – 60,600,000
7. Garry Gates – 99,300,000
8. Milos Skrbic – 23,400,000
9. Alex Livingston – 37,800,000

The finalists return to play with 90 minutes remaining at the 500,000/1,000,000/1,000,000 level.

The pace of eliminations was much quicker than expected with half the field gone in the first couple of levels. Then bursts of eliminations peppered the action until the action finally slowed at 12 players.

Big, made-for-TV hands dominated many of the eliminations – Viktor Rau was eliminated in 13th place after he shoved holding queens, Lu called with kings and spiked a king on the flop which earned Rau $600,000.

Christopher Barton went out in 14th when his ace king suited fell to pocket tens, Paul Dkaliwal lost with ace king against nines and Enrico Rudelitz busted holding pocket kings when Sammartino hit an ace holding ace queen.

Michael Niwinski went out in 12th place after a long lull after he took a shot with ace king preflop. Lu called with pocket sevens, he flopped a full house when the board came Td Tc 7s and Niwinski was out. Then Henry Lu went out in 11th place when he flopped top pair but Gates had him out-kicked.

The remaining players went to a table of ten for over an hour before Robert Heidorn shoved his short stack all in with Kh Qh. Livingston re-shipped with eights on the button and flopped a set. Heidron never caught up an the official final table was set.

The broadcast shifts into full on TV coverage on Sunday with ESPN carrying the broadcast in the US. Action gets underway at 10 pm ET and will play down from nine to players to six players. On Monday the six finalists return at 10 pm ET to play down to just three players. Then the three players return Tuesday to crown a winner at 9 pm.

Here’s a look at the final table payouts:

1st – $10,000,000
2nd – $6,000,000
3rd – $4,000,000
4th – $3,000,000
5th – $2,200,000
6th – $1,850,000
7th – $1,525,000
8th – $1,125,000
9th – $1,000,000

Day 7 Final Table Chip Counts

1. Hossein Ensan – 177,000,000
2. Garry Gates – 99,300,000
3. Zhen Cai – 60,600,000
4. Kevin Maahs – 43,000,000
5. Alex Livingston – 37,800,000
6. Dario Sammartino – 33,400,000
7. Milos Skrbic – 23,400,000
8. Timothy Su – 20,200,000
9. Nick Marchington – 20,100,000

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Photo credit to Lucas Buffa of Codigo Poker.