WSOP 2014: TV Schedule, Prize Money, Live Stream and November Nine Players
When participating in a sports championship, much is said of momentum—the physics term with an actual formula that has been reappropriated as a mystical, impossible-to-quantify force pushing a team toward or away from victory.
Sometimes, momentum is said to dissipate when a team or individual is forced to take time off from actually playing the game. There is the halftime of the Super Bowl, the day or two off between World Series games or even the week between legs in the knockout rounds of the UEFA Champions League.
Still, none of the players in those sports have to deal with the roughly four-month break between hands at the 2014 World Series of Poker No-Limit Hold 'Em Main Event, which picks back up on November 10 after the tournament whittled down the number of participants to single digits on July 14.
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The chip counts carry over, but little else makes the trip—certainly not momentum. It's a brand new card game.
Nine players will circle the green felt of the final table at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. They are the last representatives of a tournament that began with a staggering 6,683 individuals seeking one of the richest prizes in poker.
The November Nine will be playing cards for the remaining $28,480,121 of the total prize pool. The winner will walk away from the table with a cool $10 million, per WSOP.com.
Here is the television and live stream information, followed by a list of the November Nine and a preview of the bluff-calling, chip-rattling poker to come.
| Nov. 10 | 8 p.m. - 1 a.m. | ESPN2 | WatchESPN |
| Nov. 11 | 9 p.m. - 11 p.m. | ESPN | WatchESPN |
| Jorryt van Hoof | Netherlands | 38,375,000 |
| Felix Stephensen | Norway | 32,775,000 |
| Mark Newhouse | United States | 26,000,000 |
| Andoni Larrabe | Spain | 22,550,000 |
| Daniel Sindelar | United States | 21,200,000 |
| Billy Pappconstantinou | United States | 17,500,000 |
| William Tonking | United States | 15,050,000 |
| Martin Jacobson | Sweden | 14,900,000 |
| Bruno Politano | Brazil | 12,125,000 |
Jorryt van Hoof comes into the final table as the chip leader with 38,375,000 multicolored discs to his credit. He's yet another representative of the online poker boom, a human odds calculator who is able to translate his skills on the computer to a live setting. Poker journalist Remko Rinkema, writing for ESPN.com, gave a little background on the Dutch delight:
"The accomplished pro, based in London, has been playing some of the highest stakes online for many years and is a very well respected, and feared, player.
In 2009, the man known as "TheCleaner11" made one of the most famous calls in online poker history when he pulled the trigger holding just eight-high on a double-paired board. Van Hoof's opponent, poker pro Kevin MacPhee, had a pair of deuces, lost the hand and immediately posted it on poker message boards. Van Hoof's call went viral and he later meticulously explained his thought process, which garnered him even more respect.
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Van Hoof can afford to watch the other players duke it out for some time with his chip lead, but he can't watch too many blinds get swept up in the pot, as Norway's Felix Stephensen is not far behind him with just over 32 million chips.
Playing winning poker is a combination of skill, stamina and luck, and Stephensen has all three. However, it was pure whimsy, not one of those three traits, that delivered him the money he needed to make the $10,000 buy-in. Stephensen explains the magical prop bet, via WSOP.com's Isaac Hanson (h/t USAToday.com):
"It’s actually kind of a funny story. I have been stuck in London for a while now and me and a friend bet about $1,000 each on the Netherlands to beat Australia 3-2 and we got 60-1. They beat them 3 to 2 and we made a lot of money there. So, I just decided let’s go, let’s get out of town, let’s do something fun and the Main Event was right around the corner and here I am.
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It's indeed a funny story, and one worth telling at a poker table, although Mark Newhouse may not have the energy to laugh at it.
The 29-year-old card player is at his second consecutive Main Event final table, slogging through two different tournament fields featuring more than 6,000 participants. He's the first player to make back-to-back Main Event final tables since the great Dan Harrington did it in 2003 and 2004.
Newhouse finished in ninth in 2013 and will be looking to improve upon that result this year, although one could argue he's already achieved something incredible just by reaching the final table yet again.
Martin Jacobson knows a thing or two about closing out poker tournaments. He will start off with the second-smallest chip count, but he could very well be the most dangerous player in the field. Jacobson is the table leader in career earnings at more than $5.5 million, per ESPN.com's Bernard Lee. He credits online poker for jump-starting his career.
"I started playing sit-and-gos online, and they were my bread and butter," he said, via Lee. "I made some extra money online, and [those sit-and-gos] ironically helped prepare me for the steps on PokerStars."
Jacobson's route to poker success seems pretty straightforward, at least when it's compared to the zany backstory of William "Billy Pappas" Pappconstantinou. The Massachusetts native is a first-timer at the Main Event and is perhaps better known as a world foosball champion, per ESPN's Andrew Feldman:
It's fairly safe to say poker has a higher profile than competitive foosball, but Pappas does have the chance to become one of the most unlikely two-sport champions ever if he manages to pull off a victory in Las Vegas.
Bruno Politano will take a seat at the Rio as the short-stack player with just 12,125,000 chips. It's going to be tough for him to make up ground against the majority of his competitors, and his instincts will be attuned to survival from the get-go in this one.
Twenty-two-year-old Spaniard Andoni Larrabe (the youngest remaining player), William Tonking and Daniel Sindelar round out the final table.
The incredible backstories surrounding these gentlemen will likely encourage novice players to continue signing up for this gigantic event. The true pros are few and far between when the Main Event starts out, but there is plenty of money and recognition to be had.
Jacobson has the most meaningful poker experience in the field, but his small stack means that he has to be at the top of his game in order to outlast the other eight players. Newhouse has faced these incredible stakes before and is likely to be one of the favorites to walk away with the enormous cash prize.
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