The 2009 World Series of Poker took place in Las Vegas over the months of June and July. The Main Event was played down until the final table during this time and the nine players that made the final table in the Main Event won’t be back to finish the event until November. The set-up for the Main Event is the exact same as it was last year so if you watched the Main Event last year then you already know how they run the event.

There is no doubt that there are definitely some awesome players in this year’s Main Event final table and it should be interesting to see who will win. Obviously the most notable poker player that made the final table is Phil Ivey. Ivey will be starting the final table in 7th place with almost 10 million in chips so he definitely has some work to do if he expects to pick up another bracelet for his resume.

The current chip leader going into the 2009 WSOP Main Event Final Table is Darvin Moon who is sitting with almost 60 million in chips. He has a fairly large lead over the rest of the competitors right now and it should be very interesting to see what he does with his lead. I know a lot of players would sit tight and wait for some of the players to be knocked out come November, but I’m not convinced Darvin is willing to do that. I think he might try applying the pressure of the short stacked pros to see how it goes initially.

The other remaining players in the Main Event are a mix of pro players and amateur players that made it to the Main Event through a satellite event. The Main Event is always one of the most interesting tournaments of the year to watch because with such a large playing field anything can happen. As we have witnessed in the past both pro players and unknown amateur players have won the WSOP Main Event in the past and this year it could go either way again.

The players that have made the final table in the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event include the following.

• Darvin Moon – 58,930,000 Chips – United States
• Eric Buchman – 34,800,000 Chips – United States
• Steven Begleiter – 29,885,000 Chips – United States
• Jeff Shulman – 19,580,000 Chips – United States
• Joe Cada – 13,215,000 Chips – United States
• Kevin Schaffel – 12,390,000 Chips – United States
• Phil Ivey – 9,765,000 Chips – United States
• Antoine Saout – 9,500,000 Chips – France
• James Akenhead – 6,800,000 Chips – England

As you can see from the chart above there are clearly a lot more players from the United States then anywhere else this year. In previous years there have been much more of an international presence on the final table, but the way it worked out this year the top 7 players are all American. James and Antoine will have a chance to shut the Americans out from the bracelet, but they are both short stacked and will need to play some great poker if they want any chance at winning the 2009 WSOP Main Event Bracelet and the roughly $8.5 million first place prize.