[YY] As the players hung out awaiting the start of the monthly home tournament, Yuri the Young Gun was happily collecting his November Nine winnings from Stan the Stat, who had held the pool money1 for them and Roderick the Rock and Leroy the Lion. “Thanks, guys! Thanks, Ryan!” Yuri exclaimed. “That almost makes up for the last five Final Four pools that I haven’t won.”
[RR] “You’re welcome”, grumbled Rod. “Congrats to Ryan Riess, too. He was only fifth in chips going in, and played terrifically.”
[SS] “Yuri had the right idea, going with the youngest guy at the table. The youngest player has now won four of the six years of the November Nine.”2
[RR] “At least our pool made things much more interesting for me,… until Amir Lehavot busted out in third.”
[LL] “Ditto”, added Leroy, who also had half a stake in Lehavot.
[RR] “I still had a shot until the very end with Jay Farber”, bemoaned Rod, “but Riess clearly had more skill and more luck heads-up than his fellow local.”
[SS] “We each had at least one of our picks alive down to the final three. Probably meant a late Monday night for all of us (well, not for you Leroy)!”
[RR] “We all correctly avoided Mark Newhouse, who started eighth and finished ninth, David Benefield, who did the opposite (lasting only two hands longer), and Michiel Brummelhuis, who began and ended seventh.”
[YY] “Only because there were only four of us. But we would have felt pretty foolish if Sylvain Loosli had come from sixth to win it all. He did move up to fourth, just one hand before Lehavot exited, but was never a serious threat.”
[LL] “I was majorly disappointed by my pick, J.C. Tran. He didn’t look any more skilled than the other players, who all seemed to have a pretty good read on him. It didn’t take long for him to go from a fifth of the chips to fifth place.”
[SS] “He did have bad cards though, so it’s not a huge surprise that he had the lowest finish of any November Nine chip leader.3”
2013 November Nine Final Results
| Finish | Player | Start | Start Chips |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | Ryan Riess | 5th | 25,875,000 |
| 2nd | Jay Farber | 4th | 25,975,000 |
| 3rd | Amir Lehavot | 2nd | 29,700,000 |
| 4th | Sylvain Loosli | 6th | 19,600,000 |
| 5th | J.C. Tran | 1st | 38,000,000 |
| 6th | Marc-Etienne McLaughlin | 3rd | 26,525,000 |
| 7th | Michiel Brummelhuis | 7th | 11,275,000 |
| 8th | David Benefield | 9th | 6,375,000 |
| 9th | Mark Newhouse | 8th | 7,350,000 |
Footnotes:
- The Hold ‘Em at Home crew placed their bets on July 26 in November Nine Odds.
- The other three: Peter Eastgate (2008), Joe Cada (2009), and Jonathan Duhamel (2010). Pius Heinz was the second youngest in 2011, and Greg Merson was the third youngest in 2012. All six were between 21 and 24 years old!
- Amateur Dennis Phillips had finished an unsurprising third in 2008, but note that he and Tran had the smallest chip leads over fifth place going in.