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Until this year the oldest player to ever make it into a World Series of Poker November Nine was 57.
This year, enter Neil Blumenfield, 61, who this year would have broken the record for oldest player in a November Nine thus far. The American missed that honor thanks to Belgium’s Pierre Neuville, 72, also making it to this year’s final table.
While Blumenfield has enjoyed only modest success in live career play up to this point, Neuville has now cashed 20 times at World Series of Poker events.
“I started to play poker in 1957,” Neuville told Bluff Magazine prior to the November Nine qualification. “At that time I didn’t get tired – sometimes I played 20 hours a day. During six years at university in Brussels, poker players were coming from all over the world.”
Also in the mix at this year’s November Nine, 27-year-old Max Steinberg of Las Vegas.
Steinberg is a fixture on the Daily Fantasy Sports circuit having won the Victiv Bowl and countless MLB Monster wins. He has also qualified for the FanDuel Playboy Baseball Championship. More importantly, it was DraftKings, a WSOP sponsor, that allowed Steinberg to win his Main Event entry.
With over $2 million in career live poker wins to his name prior to this week, Steinberg is hoping to tack on a few million dollars more to that total in the World Series of Poker Final.
Also making the final table is Israeli player, Zvi Stern, who has played hooded with glasses throughout the tournament, taking on the persona of the Unibomber.
23-year-old Thomas Cannuli of New Jersey is the youngest of this year’s November Nine field. He is also one of two players to make this year’s Final from New Jersey, which could help support the notion that having state-legalized online poker will boost local economies in ways not yet discussed. Josh Beckley is the other. Between them, each is guaranteed to win at least $1 million with the potential for close to a $12 million total windfall should both finish in the top two spots. A good chunk of these winnings, one would suspect, will be spent in the Garden State.
Pennsylvania’s own Joe McKeehen, Patrick Chan of Brooklyn, New York and Federico Butteroni of Italy round out the rest of the November Nine.
Poker’s biggest money earner of all time, Daniel Negreanu, was eliminated in 11st place.
6420 entered this year’s World Series of Poker Final.
- Ace King, Gambling911.com
