Five ‘More’ Thoughts: What to Expect at the 2016 WSOP Main Event Final Table

The more-than-three-month wait is almost over as the 2016 World Series of Poker Main Event will begin to play out inside The Penn & Teller Theater at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas Oct. 30.

The plan is relatively straightforward: The nine players remaining will play down to four, return the next day to play down to two and a champion will be crowned Monday, Nov. 1. It’ll all play out live on-delay on ESPN or ESPN 2.

How it will all go down is another story altogether.

The final nine will be playing for a piece of $25,432,920 remaining in the prize pool. Each are guaranteed the $1,000,000 reserved for ninth with a few smaller pay jumps up until the fifth-place finisher collects $1,934,579. The money goes up significantly from there with the runner-up earning $4,658,452 and this year’s World Champion receiving a life-changing $8,000,000.

In between coverage of the rise and fall of William Kassouf, millions have now watched the story of each of this year’s November Nine unfold on ESPN. How they got here is no secret now, but where they will end up and who will end up the winner of the 2016 WSOP Main Event has yet to be determined.

That brings us here, to a special edition of PokerNews’ Five Thoughts, where we look back on our coverage of the Main Event, our own series of November Nine profiles and final table simulations, our reflections of the ESPN coverage and the hand histories on WSOP.com, to bring readers some insight into how it will all go down.

We expect Cliff Josephy to live up to his legendary status, Qui Nguyen to play the gambler and Fernando Pons and Jerry Wong to get it in early and often. We also expect Vojtech Ruzicka and Griffin Benger to have opposite reactions to playing on such a massive stage and suspect Gordon Vayo, Kenny Hallaert and Michael Ruane to be the ones hitting solid singles instead of home runs. We discuss it all in Five ‘More’ Thoughts below.

He Is Legend The Gambler The Short Stack Shuffle Lights, Camera, Action Forget About It

1. He Is Legend Cliff Josephy

An online poker legend and two-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner, Cliff Josephy is far and away the most experienced player in the 2016 November Nine. He also happens to have the most chips.

As a result, you can expect Josephy to employ a style of play that takes advantage of all that. He’ll liberally put the short stacks to a decision for their tournament lives and he’ll put pressure on the players in the middle of the pack, knowing they won’t want bust before the real short stacks do.

All Josephy’s experience means he isn’t likely to make many mistakes, and while no one is perfect, you can expect him to pretty much play that way. We don’t expect Josephy to give chips away, but we do expect he’ll make an attempt …

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