The final table of the inaugural Epic Poker League Main Event is now set after the 18 surviving players from Day 2 were whittled down to just six after nine hours of play at the Palms Resort Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. The man to catch when play resumes at 1400 local time is Hasan Habib, though it could literally be anybody’s game due to the stack sizes and relatively low blinds.
When the players return to the felt the blinds will be 10,000/20,000 with a running ante of 1,000, which means Habib has more than 82 big blinds and the average stack is still 57 big blinds deep so there is quite a lot of play left in this event. Challenging Habib for the title are some of the most recognisable faces and names in poker, starting with the man to his direct left, Erik Seidel.
It has been quite a year for Seidel as he has already made nine major final tables, won four titles and earned more than $5,650,000 in winnings and should he win the Epic Poker League Main Event it would mean he would have had three $1,000,000 or more scores during 2011 alone, which is quite frankly amazing.
In Seat 3 is David Rheem, better known as Chino. Rheem’s name may be familiar to some of you and so it should be as he was a member of the first-ever November Nine back in 2008. Rheem went on to finish seventh for $1,772,650 and he followed that great result up by winning the $15,000 Main Event of the WPT Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic for a further $1,538,730. There have been rumours circulating around the poker community that Rheem owes large sums of money to a few well-known poker players, which if true could make him exciting to watch as he will almost certainly be going all out for the win.
Gavin Smith is the player in Seat 4 and if anything he should be entertaining to watch when the final table is shown on television. Smith is one of poker’s last remaining characters and is always laughing, joking, pulling pranks and making prop bets with his fellow players. But under this court jester bravado that he shows, Smith is a talented poker player and one who has almost $5,600,000 in live tournament winnings to his name.
The man in Seat 5 will probably be the bookmakers’ favourite to win this event, Jason Mercier. The man is a total machine, I honestly do not think there is anyone in the world who comes close to him. He plays a lot of tournaments and not a month seems to go by without him reaching the final table or winning a major event and since 2008 he has won $6,350,127 from live tournaments, including winning EPT San Remo as his first-ever live cash and going on to win two WSOP bracelets.
Last but not least is Huck Seed in the six seat. Seed has been winning poker tournaments since 1990 and has career winnings of more than $7,150,000 in his career so far. The four-time WSOP bracelet winner, including being the Main Event champion back in 1996, is somewhat of a heads up specialist so it would be very interesting to watch if he manages to double up and make it through to the one-on-one stage against someone like Mercier of Rheem.
Each of the six final table members is guaranteed to take home at least $107,980 for their efforts over the past week and this increases steadily until the eventual winner picks up a cheque for one million US dollars.
Final table seating plan and chip counts
Seat 1: Hasan Habib: 1,655,000 chips
Seat 2: Erik Seidel: 1,109,000
Seat 3: Chino Rheem: 1,432,000
Seat 4: Gavin Smith: 766,000
Seat 5: Jason Mercier: 1,495,000
Seat 6: Huck Seed: 396,000
