Twenty-six year old Sylvia is the man who is in pole position right now and will be the bookmakers favourite to become this year's world champion. The Las Vegas-based poker pro will start the final table armed with 43,875,000 chips, exactly 14,500,000 more than his nearest rival Andras Koroknai of Hungary.
Sylvia was already nicely stacked when he saw his stack swell by 18,500,000 when he eliminated Scott Abrams in 12th place. It was the last hand of Level 33 and Russell Thomas opened the betting with a raise to 500,000 from the cutoff. Thomas picked up three callers in the shape of Steven Gee (button), Sylvia (small blind) and Abrams (big blind. The foursome shared a flop that read 7d-3d-Kh and the action checked to Gee who fired a bet of 1,450,000. Sylvia then raised it up to 3,400,000 in the small blind only to see Abrams reraise to 7,000,000 in total from the big blind. Thomas and Gee both got out of the way but Sylvia moved all-in and was instantly called. Abrams showed Kd-Jd for top pair and a flush draw and it needed to hit against the black sevens of Sylvia that had flopped a set. Neither the Qc turn or the 6c river were of any help to Abrams and he busted out in 12th spot.
Shortly after Abrams' exit our friend Elisabeth Hille joined him on the sidelines. Hille was looking to become the first woman since Barbara Enright in 1995 to reach a Main Event final table but it just was not meant to be. Hille committed her stack preflop with Ah-Qh and ran into 7c-7s of Koroknai, which held on a 4s-3s-Jd-Kc-3c board to send our heroine to the rail in 11th place, a finish worth $590,442. An amazing achievement from Hille we are sure you will agree.
Hille's exit left Gaelle Baumann as the last female player in the field but her quest to reach the official nine-handed table was cut short, again by Koroknai. On hand #15 of the unofficial 10-handed final table Baumann moved all-in for 5,200,000 holding Ad-9h and she was looked up by Koroknai and his dominating Ah-Js. Neither player improved on the 3h-Qc-Qh-8s-Kd board but Koroknai's jack-kicker came into play and the tournament became an all-male affair.
As mentioned, the tournament has now been paused until October 28 which gives us a number of weeks to find out more about the eight American's and one Hungarian who make up the October Nine. Each of these men have taken home with them ninth place money ($754,798) and will return to The Rio in late October to fight it out for the $8,527,982 first place prize. Congratulations to the October Nine and commiserations to those who fell just short. It been one hell of a ride and we cannot wait until the grand finale of this amazing tournament.
WSOP Main Event Final Table
Seat 1: Russell Thomas - 24,800,000 chips
Seat 2: Jacob Balsiger - 13,115,000
Seat 3: Jeremy Ausmus - 9,805,000
Seat 4: Steven Gee - 16,860,000
Seat 5: Greg Merson - 28,725,000
Seat 6: Jesse Sylvia - 43,875,000
Seat 7: Robert Salaburu - 15,155,000
Seat 8: Andras Koroknai - 29,375,000
Seat 9: Michael Esposito - 16,260,000