People in the poker community often come up to me and ask about whatever is on their mind. Some of these questions are good questions, and some are bad beat stories in disguise. I’ve been through quite a few things in my poker career and I like to help whenever possible, and in this new Card Player series, I’d like to share my experiences and knowledge. Feel free to ask any poker-related question, and I’ll do my best to answer it in the space below.
Question: The World Series of Poker has reached its final table and the November 9 has been set, any thoughts on the players that are still in? I saw there are some websites allowing you to bet on who will win, anything look like a good bet?
Since I didn’t play this year’s WSOP main event and I didn’t have any monetary rooting interest in anybody who made it deep, I thought for sure I would be uninterested in the results of the tournament. I was clearly mistaken though. I found myself glued to the updates, especially from day 6 and 7. There were a couple of reasons for this. First of all, because I didn’t play in it, I wasn’t really emotionally invested in it. Usually, after I bust out of the main event, I don’t pay attention to the updates at all and instead just check to see who won/who made the final table. I don’t want to be bothered with how things develop. There are some exceptions. For instance, I was really interested in the live stream of the final few days when they broadcasted it a few years ago. I found the poker to be fun and interesting to watch. For the most part though, I don’t really care too much how people get to the final table. Just that they got there.
Second, I know a couple people at the final table pretty well for the first time since the November 9 started. I first met J.C. Tran when I started traveling the circuit years ago and he’s always been super nice to me. He had been around for a few years already when we met and he introduced me to some of his friends, took me out to eat a couple times, and has just always been a nice, stand-up guy. It feels like each year more and more people come away with some sort of stink on their hands through scandal and J.C. has been clean and trustworthy for as long as I’ve known him.
J.C. is coming in as the chip leader at the final table and, ironically, the guy I know the most at the final table and who I’ll be rooting hardest for is the one who’s last in chips, David Benefield. I first met David on TCU’s campus when we were both going there, however briefly. We spent plenty of time talking poker and missing class while we were still in Fort Worth. We’ve taken different paths in life, but keep in touch occasionally and I always enjoy my time with him. He’s an incredibly smart guy and one hell of a talented poker player. I’m proud to call him my friend and excited to see him on poker’s biggest stage.
I won’t be making any bets on the final table, but I did look around online to find the best odds I could. I’m posting them here with the players’ chip counts. The final column in this table is the percentage of chips each of them has. If they were all equal in skill, which they most likely aren’t, this percentage would correlate to how often each of them would win the tournament.
| Name | Chip Count | Odds to Win | % of Chips |
| JC Tran | 38,000,000 | 3-1 | 19.90% |
| Amir Lehavot | 29,700,000 | 5-1 | 15.60% |
| Marc McLaughlin | 26,525,000 | 5-1 | 13.90% |
| Jay Farber | 25,975,000 | 5-1 | 13.60% |
| Ryan Reiss | 25,875,000 | 5-1 | 13.60% |
| Sylvain Loosli | 19,600,000 | 8-1 | 10.30% |
| Michiel Brummelhuis | 11,275,000 | 10-1 | 5.90% |
| Mark Newhouse | 7,350,000 | 20-1 | 3.90% |
| David Benefield | 6,375,000 | 20-1 | 3.30% |
These numbers are purely for entertainment purposes, but the two best bets are Lehavot and Loosli since their prices most closely correspond to their chip counts. Lehavot has 15.6 percent of chips in play and must win 16.6 percent of the time to break even at a 5-1 price. Loosli has 10.3 percent of the chips and must win 11.1 percent of the time to break even at an 8-1 price. The worst bets by chip count are Brummelhuis and Benefield. Brummelhuis has 5.9 percent of the chips in play and must win 9.1 percent of the time to break even on a 10-1 bet, a difference of 3.2% or 54% more often than his chips say he would. Benefield has 3.3 percent of the chips in play and must win 4.8 percent of the time to break even at 20-1, a difference of 1.5% or 45 percent more often than the chips say he would.
I’ll definitely be tuning in to the WSOP final table in November to see how it turns out. With a baby who will be close to 1 at the time, I don’t know if I’ll travel to Vegas to watch it live, but I will be watching intently either way to root on David and JC.
If you have a question for Gavin, send it to editor@www.cardplayer.com.
