WSOP 2013 Final Table: Who Are This Year's November Nine (Pt1)

At 2:30am on Tuesday morning, the 2013 WSOP Main Event final table was set with the November Nine now on a break until November 4th when the tournament resumes and plays down to its ultimate champion.
The remaining competitors can now expect to receive anywhere from $733,224 to $8,359,531 for reaching the Final Table, with the players lining-up as follows:
1 JC Tran – 38,000,000
2 Amir Lehavot – 29,700,00
3 Marc McLaughlin – 26,525,000
4 Jay Farber – 25,975,000
5 Ryan Riess – 25,875,000
6 Sylvain Loosli – 19,600,000
7 Michiel Brummelhuis – 11,275,000
8 Mark Newhouse – 7,350,000
9 David Benefield – 6,375,000
Now Meet The November Nine:
JC Tran (38m): JC Tran is the most accomplished pro at the table with two WSOP bracelets and a World Poker Tour title to his name, not to mention $8,308,259 in live earnings. However, the 36 year-old has seen his results suffer over the past couple of years, that is until this year’s WSOP got underway, and as Tran explains:
“The past couple years, I’ve been really distracted with a lot of things going on. I became a family man, married, I have a son. I came to the world series not really having that fire that I used to have. And when I looked back on the past couple years, I said, look, these results are not so good. I’m going to set one last goal, and that is to win this thing, and then I’m going to take a nice little break, enjoy my wife and my kids and watch them grow up. Poker should be for fun from here on out.”
Amir Lehavot (29.7m): The Israeli pro, 38, won a bracelet at the 2011 WSOP $10,000 Pot Limit Hold’em Championship for $573,456, and already boasts around $3 million in combined live and online earnings.
Marc-Etienne McLaughlin (26.5m): This is the 25 year-old Canadian tattoo artist’s third deep run in the Main Event, having finished 30th ($253,941) in 2009, 86th ($76,146) in 2011, and now having made it all the way to the final table in 2013.
“It’s a wonderful feeling, and I don’t think I fully realize it right now. Three months of party and joy. That’s what I’m thinking about. And some sleep.”
Jay Farber (25.9m): The 28 year-old used to play poker before Black Friday until landing a “real job” as a VIP host/nightclub promoter in Las Vegas. Farber has just $2,155 in tournament earnings to his name but describes himself as a cash game player, explaining:
“I’m not a tournament player. It’s frustrating coming from being a cash-game player to playing 12 to 14 hours a day. But I really enjoyed the main event because it’s like playing a deep stack cash game.”
Ryan Riess (25.8m): The 23 year-old Michigan State University graduate is the youngest player at the final table, and has amassed more than $300k in live tournament winnings since his first cash in October 2012. Most of Riess’ earnings has come from his 2nd place finish at the $1,675 WSOPC Horseshoe Chicago for $239,063, although at this year’s WSOP he did finish 11th out of 2,108 players at the $1,000 No Limit Hold’em event for $20,015.
“I’m so happy, time to win this tournament in November. When we were short-handed, five-handed and six-handed, I feel like everyone was playing a little soft and I had the chance to run over them. I think they were all just really excited to make the November Nine and so I decided to start mashing.”
See the second part of this article here: “WSOP 2013 Final Table: Who Are This Year’s November Nine (Pt2)”