13 July 2019 (Las Vegas) – After seven days of poker, the 2019 World Series of Poker Main Event is now down to a final table. From more than 8,000 hopefuls, only nine players remain, and one of them will walk away with an eight-figure payday when Main Event concludes next week.
Hossein Ensan is the chip leader heading into the final table. With 177,000,000 in chips, Ensan has a big lead over Garry Gates, who is second in chips with 99,300,000. Nick Marchington, who started today as the chip leader, is the shortest stack with 20,100,000, and Timothy Su is just barely ahead of him with 20,200,000.
It was a wild Day 7 of the Main Event at the Rio Hotel and Casino. Typically, Day 7 begins with 27 players. However, with this year’s huge turnout – it was the second largest Main Event field of all time with 8,569 players – there were still 35 players remaining when play concluded Thursday night.
However, within the first hour of play on Friday afternoon, five players were eliminated. After the flurry of early bustouts, it seemed like play slowed a bit. It was another hour before the next elimination. There were two eliminations within a few minutes, and then another 90 minute wait until Yuri Dzivielski was eliminated in 28th place. Dzivielski won a bracelet earlier this summer, but fell just short of pulling off the double.
After Dzivielski’s elimination, the final 27 players redrew to the final three tables. The bustouts were steady, and within four hours the field was down to 14 players.
During those four hours, two players distanced themselves from the rest of the field. Timothy Su – who held the chip at the end of Day 5 – and Hossein Ensan were the first players over 100,000,000 in chips. There’s a little more than 500,000,000 in play, so Su and Ensan each held over 20% of the chips in play with 14 remaining.
At that point, the pace of eliminations slowed considerably. But over the course of four hours, the players dropped, one by one: Christopher Barton in 14th place. Then Viktor Rau in 13th and Michael Niwinski in 12th. Eventually, Henry Lu was eliminated in 11th place, and the last 10 players combined to the unofficial final table. With one more elimination, the official final table would be set.
In the midst of those four eliminations, Hossein Ensan extended his lead, and in a key hand he send Su back to the pack. Su held Ace-Queen against Ensan's pocket tens. The flop came with both a queen and a ten. The players got a lot of chips in the middle (although didn't get all in), and when the dust settled, Ensan had over 160 million in chips - more than 1/3 of all the chips in play. Su was down to 39 million.
After about 45 minutes at the unofficial final table, Robert Heidorn was eliminated in 10th place, leaving the official final table of nine. Each of the remaining players is guaranteed a payout of at least $1,000,000, and the eventual winner will earn $10,000,000.
The final tablists have an off-day on Saturday, and play will resume on Sunday under the bright lights of the ESPN stage. There is 1:41:35 left on the clock in Level 37 (500,000/1,000,000 blinds, with a 1,000,000-big blind ante).
Here’s the remaining final table schedule:
Sunday, July 14 – 6:30 p.m. PDT start. Live on ESPN2 starting at 7:00 p.m.
Monday, July 15 – 6:30 p.m. PDT start. Live on ESPN starting at 7:00 p.m.
Tuesday, July 16 – 5:30 p.m. PDT start. Live on ESPN starting at 6:00 p.m. Play will continue until the 2019 World Champion of Poker is crowned.
Results so far
Live Updates from the event
Photos from the event
FINAL NINE PLAYERS
Seat 1 – Hossein Ensan – 177,000,000 Chips - CHIP LEADER
Hossein Ensan is an Iranian-German poker pro who has enjoyed increasing success on the global poker scene in recent years. Ensan emigrated from his native Iran to Germany in 1990 and began traveling and competing in poker tournaments around 2004, though it wasn't until 2013 that he began booking significant cashes. He still describes himself as a poker amateur, just as he once described himself as a “simple painter,” his former occupation, following his breakthrough performances earlier this decade. Ensan has one daughter and travels frequently to his native Iran.
Ensan's career-best performance is a victory for €754,510, worth about US $825,000. Also of note is Ensan's win at the 2017-18 WSOP International Circuit stop at Kings Casino in Rozvadov, Czech Republic, where he topped a 672-entry main event field to collect €184,812, about US $220,000.
Seat 2 – Nick Marchington – 20,100,000 Chips
Nick Marchington is a 21-year old poker professional who dropped out of college where he was pursuing a Computer Science degree. He has one recorded tournament cash. It’s from the $800 No-Limit Hold’em Deepstack event earlier this summer at the WSOP. He finished in 18th place, earning $12,415.
He is from Hornchurch, Essex in the United Kingdom and currently lives in London. His favorite football team is West Ham United.
Seat 3 – Dario Sammartino – 33,400,000 Chips
Dario Sammartino is a 32-year old poker professional with $3,446,357 in career WSOP tournament winnings. He has 38 WSOP cashes, his biggest cash coming from the $111,111 High Roller for One Drop in 2017. He won $1,608,295.
He has three third place finishes in WSOP events and his best Main Event finish was in 2017, when he finished 43rd.
He learned poker after his grandfather passed away. His father taught him as a way to help him cope with the loss. He is a former Starcraft player and a regular on the poker high-roller scene.
Seat 4 – Kevin Maahs – 43,000,000 Chips
Chicago's Kevin Maahs is a relatively new player on the WSOP scene, but he's making a big imprint on the Series in one of his first poker trips to Las Vegas. The 27-year-old Maahs had logged only one prior WSOP cash before his deep run here, a 169th-place finish for $1,230 in a big-field, multi-flight WSOP Circuit Horseshoe Hammond (Indiana) event in February 2019. Maahs, though, is an increasing poker presence on the Midwest poker scene, having logged a live-career best $20,625 cash last September.
Seat 5 – Timothy Su – 20,200,000 Chips
Timothy Su is a 25 year old software engineer from Boston, MA. Before this year’s WSOP, Su had two cashes for $1,540. This is his first Main Event and he was the chip leader of his Day 2 flight as well as at the end of Day 5.
Originally from Allentown, PA, Su is a fan of Philadelphia sports teams. He is currently working as part of a 15-person startup in Boston called Canopy.
He plays three instruments, the piano, the violin, and the oboe. He loves Tchaikovsky and enjoys playing classical music. Su said, “there are a lot of parallels between music, poker and software in terms of taking liberties in choosing what you think is correct.”
He says his proudest moment is completing a 100-mile bike ride.
Seat 6 – Zhen Cai – 60,600,000 Chips
Florida's Zhen Cai is a full-time pot-limit Omaha cash-game pro who only occasionally finds time to participate in tournaments, though his 2019 run may change that. Cai, a former casino employee, is usually found in Florida's plentiful cardrooms, though he makes occasional poker trips elsewhere, such as the WSOP. The 35-year-old Cai, a resident of Lake Worth, Florida, has logged occasional WSOP cashes dating all the way back to 2010. Cai is also a WSOP Circuit ring winner, having won Event #5: $565 No-Limit Hold'em, at the 2010-11 WSOP Circuit Regional Championship at Harrah's New Orleans (Louisiana). That effort was worth $33,753, second among all his live cashes. Cai has also received mentoring from his good friend, Tony Miles, who finished second in the WSOP Main Event in 2018.
Seat 7– Garry Gates – 99,300,000 Chips
Poker-industry veteran Garry Gates has enjoyed increasing success on the felt in addition to his regular behind-the-tables career. Gates began in poker as a live reporter, quickly advanced to becoming a live-reporting manager, and for the past several years has worked as an events manager and senior consultant for player affairs for an online poker site. The 37-year-old Gates lives in Henderson, Nevada when not traveling the globe. Gates is also a survivor of the horrific 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas in which 58 other concert-goers lost their lives.
Gates, a native of Titusville, Pennsylvania, has participated in the Main Event for the past decade, having made the money in both 2011 and 2017. The 2011 cash was for a 170th-place effort worth $47,107. Most of his career cashes have come in WSOP or WSOP Circuit events, with his prior career-best payday, $64,530, earned with a fourth-place finish in Circuit event in Atlantic City in 2012.
Seat 8 – Milos Skrbic – 23,400,000 Chips
Serbia's Milos Skrbic is a relative newcomer to the WSOP but has left his mark on the global live-poker scene in recent months. The 30-year-old Skrbic, who lives in Sremska Mitrovica in northwestern Serbia, has earned over $1.6 million in live poker tournaments. The vast majority of that total has come in 2018 and 2019. Skrbic broke through in a major way when he placed fifth in the Main Event at the 2018 World Series of Poker Europe, earning €241,718 (USD 275,054). He then earned his first seven-figure score later that year.
Seat 9 – Alex Livingston – 37,800,000 Chips
Canada's Alex Livingston is a full-time poker pro who splits his time between his native Halifax, Nova Scotia, and Las Vegas. The 32-year-old Livingston has made a deep run in the Main Event before, having finished 13th in the 2013 Main for a live-career best $451,398. This former chess champion learned poker as many do, via games with friends. He attended Tufts University in Boston, and he later acquired a pizzeria in North Brooklyn, part of New York City. Livingston, also enjoys golf and bowling and is a big fan of NBA basketball. The 32-year-old Livingston has participated at the WSOP since his early 20's and continues to proudly represent his native Canada at the tables.