2008 WSOP Diary: Main Event Final Table Players Defined

  And then there were nine. Yesterday the World Series of Poker field was finally narrowed to the final nine players. This left most people with a strange, unsatisfied feeling as the WSOP ground to a halt for the first time with no Main Event Champion being crowned. It was sort of like getting a hot fudge sundae with the actual fudge. Regardless of anyone's feeling on how the setup has been changed to make ESPN happy, we are still looking forward to eventually seeing the final nine play it out until there is a champion. Here is your World Series of Poker Main Event final table:Seat 1: Dennis Phillips - 26,295,000Seat 2: Craig Marquis - 10,210,000Seat 3: Ylon Schwartz - 12,525,000Seat 4: Scott Montgomery - 19,690,000Seat 5: Darus Suharto - 12,520,000Seat 6: David 'Chino' Rheem - 10,230,000Seat 7: Ivan Demidov - 24,400,000Seat 8: Kelly Kim - 2,620,000Seat 9: Peter Eastgate - 18,375,000  Seeing as these names are not as well known as the Ferguson's, Hellmuth's, and Rousso's of the world, the four month break gives us all an opportunity to get to know them.  Perhaps the second most disappointed person of the day was Dean Hamrick who was the last player busted before the final table was set. He went all in with an A-J right into the teeth of Craig Marquis's pocket Queens. The rest of the hand wasn't pretty and Dean was out in 10th place.  The most disappointed people of the day were the folks who run PokerNews.com. They had their own, homegrown star Tiffany "Hot Chips" Michelle pinched by Ultimate Bet poker. As soon as she made it to the final day of the Main Event, this attractive and highly skilled player was suddenly a magnet for sponsorship deals, and PokerNews was quickly out of the picture.  Well that about does it for the strange and wild trip that this year's WSOP turned into.