Speaker 1: Hello everyone, Welcome back to a new episode of the
Poker Go Podcast. My name is Donnie Peters. It is Sunday,
August second, ten forty nine pm, the eve of the
twenty twenty six World Series of Poker Main Event Final Table.
When you guys are listening to this, it will be
the day of the first of three days for the
Epic Finish two, the greatest poker tournament in the world. Sorry,
Matt Savage, you gotta hear that. Right out of the gates,
nine players remain. They are all playing for the ten
million dollar first place prize. Those nine players came from
a field of nine thousand, two hundred and eight entries.
They've had two and a half weeks off, give or
take a little bit, not your the exact amount of time,
but it's finally here. It is finally here. I am
pumped for it. I've watched the episodes. I watched a
bit of the streams to get caught up on some things,
see how it all played out a little bit more. Yes,
I was there in person, but it's always one thing
to be there in the room on the floor. It's
always another thing to uh to see all the action
come through the screen, via the streams, via the episodes.
It's been it's been a lot of fun to get
caught up. The time frame here between reaching the final
table and then you know, getting to it on Monday feels,
i'll say a little bit awkward because it's you know,
it's about two and a half weeks. It's not like
the full November nine experience. But it's also not right after.
It's not the the day after. You know, they did
take that day off recently. So I'm ready for it
to be here and I'm happy that it's going to
be able to to see through to the end. Just
got done with was down at the Poker Grove Studio
for shout out to the guys on the Poker News
podcast Chat Holloway, Ben Ludlow, and Mike Holtz. They just
had their one thousandth episode. It was a live in
show ordeal. A lot of fun to be down there.
I would say sixty to seventy people in the room,
had a lot of different guests, a couple people from
the couple players from the main event final table. Greg
Mueller was there, Michael Gagliano Gaggs was also in the building.
They had a former main event final table list there
as well. Jeremy Osmas was there, Jamie Gold was hanging
around also. I hopped on there for a couple of minutes.
Sarah Herring got on there as well. It was really
cool to be there and see that all come together,
and glad those guys got to do it, and glad
we got to help them by allowing them to use
the studio because I would say quite the perfect setting
for this sort of thing. Also, the timing was just
great eve of the WSP main event final table, so
a lot of people in town got to see my
Lance Bradley out there, tons of others as well, So
really cool for that to happen. I'm sure that's going
to be dropping on their feed, both on YouTube and
on the podcast players pretty soon, so make sure that
you check that out. I did look back. I was
on the first ever Poker News podcast. I couldn't remember
if I was or if I wasn't, but I did
find some stuff online. A lot of it's just not
available from the old stuff. But the first one was
Matt Parvus hosting and it was ahead of the November
nine so kind of coincidentally times up with what we're
talking about here twenty ten, I believe it was, and
he had myself on alongside Eric Ramsey and Mickey Doft,
and we previewed the final table. We gave some take
some thoughts on it. So that was the first ever
episode of the Poker News podcast. Rich Ryan producer Rich
producer here was also producer there. The guys just been
an absolute freakin' lifer. Tries to get out of poker,
but we won't let them. We still got pods that
need producing. They got to be edited, always be producing, sir,
Let's go. You know so again, just check out the
Poker News Podcast one thousandth episode when that drops as
soon as it does for us here on the Poker
Go Podcast. This show today just going to be running
to the final table. I got some bio stuff that
I want to hit on. I know I did talk
a lot of bit about these players, but a little
bit of a refresh here, both for you guys out there,
but also for myself. You just make sure that I
remind myself who everyone is, and then I want to
kind and dig into I don't know, just some thoughts
that I have going into the final table. There's been
a lot of talk out there on social media on
ICM and like start, a final table approaches based on
where everyone is in chips, So I'm going to touch
on that a little bit. I'll give some thoughts on,
you know, how this thing could play out at the start,
what I think might happen, or maybe what I hope
might happen. Maybe I'm leaning into this is what I
want to see versus what I think we'll see. And
then also I just have some kind of thoughts, some
questions that I was I throw myself because I'm the
only one on this damn show. So that's what we're
gonna do, and then we will get to you guys
out of here. Three days for the w s AP
Main Event Final Table are planned, all live on either
ESPN two or ESPN if I have the schedule correct.
On Monday, we're gonna be live, not we but you know,
w s AP Main Elevment Final Table is gonna be
live on ESPN two. It starts at nine Eastern time,
six Pacific, and it's scheduled to go nine to twelve,
but of course it'll probably get determined by play, you know,
if it's like last year when MS Rocky just just
ran through the final table like it was just you know,
I mean, that guy just absolutely steamrolled that freaking thing.
Could be out of there on ho or who knows
that they obviously won't play him too late. They'll probably
try and get down to I'll say five or six
players is usually the target on this first day. Then
they'll come back on Tuesday, same time slot nine to
twelve Eastern that's six to nine Pacific time. That'll be
on ESPN, So the main main ESPN. He won as
I believe they call it. So that's gonna get to
the second batch of this final table will take us
down to either three handed play or heads uplay. And
they're gonna come back on Wednesday, ten thirty Eastern time
start seven thirty Pacific time, is what I'm saying on
the schedule. That's also gonna be on ESPN, and that's
gonna take us right down to a winner ten million
dollars up top. Believe it's Ali Najade and Nick Schulman
on the call. Those two are the goats. I can't
wait to tune in for that. I'm gonna be there,
but I'm also gonna have the stream on. I'm gonna
try and like double dip and not get spoiled. But
of course, because I'm there, because of the delay, I'm
gonna have some spoilers, So I'm just gonna have to
deal with it. But I freaking love it. It's the
best time of the year to be a poker fan.
Lucas Jumalan is the chip leader entering the WSIP Main
Event Final table, and holy crap, is it a big
chip leader. If you guys have been living under a rock,
this chip leaders out of control. One hundred and ninety
four million for Jumalan. That's more than thirty five percent
of the chips in play. In fact, that is the
most the largest percentage of the final table chips that
a chip leader has had entering the final nine. I
think it was Karai. Aldemir was the next closest with
thirty five point oh six percent. Jumalan's got thirty five
point oh eight percent. Jumalan definitely has the biggest gap
between first and second. If if that was that Aldemir year,
which I could just I could pull it up right
now because I have it all in my nice little document,
Yeah it was Aldemir. Aldemir had thirty five point oh
six percent of the chips in play, one hundred and
forty million, George Holmes. It was ended, it ended up
being those two getting heads up had twenty point nine
six so a difference of about fourteen percent there. But
as it relates to Jumalan, he's got one hundred and
ninety four million, thirty five point eight percent of the
chips in play. Romy Hamoud is in second with seventy
nine million, fourteen point twenty nine percent, so almost twenty
one percent more chips than then second place. Here. We'll
get into the size of the chip lead for Jumalan,
what it means, what it might mean a little bit
later on, but right now I'm just kind of running
through the chips in This is in chip order. When
I talk about the players in a second, I'll go
through and see order. Rami Hamoud's in second seventy nine million,
Jamie Shavell in third with fifty six million. This next
batch of one, two, three, four, five players, they're all
bunched really close together. They got Jamie Shavell fifty six million,
Greg Mueller FBT forty eight point five million for him,
Michael Gagliano GAS forty six point five million, Mario Boos
forty four million, Luri Sascalatti thirty seven point five million,
and then after that you have two short stacks. One
is slightly ahead of the other one. Han Feng's got
twenty five million. That is I believe seventeen big lines.
And then Eva gorris Iva Goru has fifteen big lines,
a twenty two point five million, and that is the
final table of the DIBYSSIPI main event. Now let's go
around the table in seat order hit on these players
a little bit deeper than just naming their chip count.
In seat one, we have Finland's Louri Sascalatti. He's thirty
nine years old out of Helsinki, now resides in Spain.
He has a really cool story, one of the better
ones from the final table because he's not He doesn't
list himself as a professional poker player. He works full time,
or at least he did. Who knows what's gonna come
after you win seven figures or much more more at
the WISIP main event, but head of sales for a
packaging company considers poker more of a hobby than a profession.
A lot was talked about how his family was coming
in from Europe for the final table, and then they're
going to be planning in a vacation down to San Diego,
also to Disneyland great spots. I was just in San
Diego myself for a few days with the fam during
this little break in the action, so that's going to
be a really fun trip for Sascolatti and his fam.
His oldest daughter already thinks that her dad is the
best poker player in the world, and I mean it's
pretty hard to refute that when you make the wsup
being main event file say well and the heck if
he wins the damn thing. I mean, he is the
best poker player in the world. So Lauri Sescalotti out
of Finland, thirty nine years old, Seat one, thirty seven
point five million, twenty five big blinds, see two gags,
Michael Gagliano. He's quietly put together one of the strongest
resumes in the A lot has been talked about Greg Mueller,
and I know we're going to get to him shortly
about how he's the most experienced, the most accomplished player
at the table. But let's not sleep on gags. He's
got four WSOP bracelets, more than two million dollars in
live earnings. He's a sponsored pro with bet MGM. He's
spent years and years and years not only playing poker
both live and online and having a lot of success
doing so, but he also coaches players. He's very good
at that. He consults for various poker operators or earth.
He has right now of course partnered up with bet
MGM Poker. He's one of those players who's I think
he's just seen it all when it comes to the game.
And I think, you know, if you guys remember back
to when I talked with him after they made the
wsp Man Event final table, you know, it's kind of
and he also said this again today when we were
down at the Poker News podcast, a live show. But
how it's it's just another poker tournament. And you might
get some for saying that, but for gags, it is.
And yes, it's awesome and it's the biggest poker tournament
in the world, but also like he knows exactly what
this is, this situation. He's played, however, many thousands of
final tables in his life, live and online. You know,
just that wealth of experience there. He's got thirty one
big blinds forty six point five million coming into the
final table. I mean he's been in this spot time
and time and time again. It's a poker tournament. There
are big pay jumps. He's got a thirty big blind stack.
Let's go to work. So for gags like that's how
he's approaching this thing. Just the fact that he has
seen likely every single situation imaginable. You know, that's I
think that's a really big advantage. I don't think he's
someone who's gonna get flustered at all when the lights
come on. You know. He talked about how the the
about two and a half weeks off or whatever it was,
was a little bit awkward for him. It's like almost
it's too much time to just stay in Vegas, but
then almost not enough time to like go home and
actually get settled in New Jersey. But he did go home,
tried to get settled as much as he could, came
back out here today to get this done. He's forty
one years old, I said, he resides in New Jersey.
He's married with two kids. That is Michael Gagliano in
Seed two, Seat three, the Frenchman Mario Boose forty four million,
twenty nine big blinds a full time poker professional. He's
looking to become the first French player to win the
WISOP main event. There have been some deep runs, there
have been some final tables from French players before Anton sayout.
He actually did it twice. In two thousand and nine
he finished third for Joshi three point five million, Then
in twenty seventeen he got fifth for two million. Also
in twenty seventeen, Benjamin Pollock, another Frenchman, got third place
for three point five million, and then in twenty thirteen
it was Sylvan Loosely who got fourth for two point
eight million. Boose's resume isn't you know, quite as extensive
as some of the other pros at this table. I mean,
we just talked about all the stuff, all the success
that Michael Gagliano has had. But for Boose, you know,
he's steadily been building his results throughout Europe over the
last couple of years. His previous best score before this
run was a sixth place finish from a field of
more than seven thousand entries in a three hundred and
eighty euro Italian Poker Sport main event in Rosvedov. That
was in twenty twenty five, So last year three hundred
and eighty euros, but he won fifty four thousand, six
hundred dollars because there was more than seven thousand entries
in that field. He also won a Swiss Poker Series
main event in April twenty twenty six or earlier this
year for more than forty nine thousand dollars. On his
player profile, he described himself as a survivor and after
making it through a field of more than nine thy
two hundred entries, that's pretty fitting. And also, you know,
at a final table like this, when the pay jumps
are so large, the minimum pay jump at this basity
Manhavn final table, he's a quarter of a million dollars.
So a lot of players will take that let's just
survive approach. Survive survives, survive, ladder up, ladder up, ladder up,
And that could really be Boos's m o here. He's
thirty two years old, he's been playing poker since two
thy and eleven. Seat four belongs to FBT Greg Mueller.
He's probably the most accomplished live tournament player left. I
know Gagliano has more bracelets. Mueller has three, Gagliano has four,
but everything else on on Mueller's record, I think probably
lends himself to being the most accomplished live tournament player left.
He's fifty five years old, is Mueller. He's out a
white Rock van Hoover at Canada the FBT. His nickname
stands for full Blown Tilt. He's a former professional hockey
player who spent years playing hockey in Germany before turning
to poker full time, and that has obviously worked out
pretty damn well. He was a recent guest on the
Face the Ace podcast, Face the Ace Excuse Me podcast
with Remco Rinkima. You can find that right here on
this podcast feed or over on the Poker Go YouTube channel,
So definitely go check that out if you guys haven't already.
Greg talks about his run. You know, a lot's been
made about how he kind of was going through the motions,
he wasn't feeling it. He got into it with his
good friend Sean Buchanan. He's been on his rail. Bucky
gave him some tough love and Greg put it all
together and now here he is in the final nine
in the World Series of Poker Main Event. So Mula
talks a lot about that in the podcast with Remco
so I would highly encourage you guys to go check
that out. It's a great little appetizer here before we
get into this main course for the main events. Mueller's
won three WSP Gold bracelets. I think for Gagliano, by
the way, it was it's one live, three online. For Mueller,
all of them are live. In two thousand and nine
he won two. I think it was within a week
or a week and a half time that he won
both of them. He won the ten k limit hold
Him for four hundred and sixty thousand dollars. Then he
won the fifteen hundred dollars limit hold Him Shootout for
one hundred and ninety four thousand dollars. Ten years later,
twenty nineteen, he won the ten k horse for four
hundred and twenty five thousand dollars. He's also got two
seconds in WSP events. He's got two third place finishes
in WSP events. He also has two WPT final tables
on his resume, so millions of dollars in tournament earnings
for Mueller. He's been around the biggest stages in poker.
Obviously poker tournaments. As I just ran through some of
those highlights there he's played played in some stream cash
games as well, you know, so I don't think he's
someone who's going to be shying away from, you know,
the bright lights, the cameras and all that sort of stuff.
So Greg Mueller FBT seat four forty eight point five
million for him, by the way, thirty two big blinds. Again,
he's really bunched up in that middle group there, seat five.
We got Jamie Chevelle with fifty six million or thirty
seven big lines. Of that group of five players, that's
that middling bunch. He has the most of that group.
So it's Jumalan's way up on top. Then you got
Ramija mood like comfortably in second place, still a bit
of a ways off of Jumalan, but he's got enough
gap between him and Jamie Schavelle and the third and
then it's Chevelle with the biggest of this bunching middle stacks. Here,
he's one of the veterans of the w CP main event.
He's thirty nine years old, but he's played this tournament
eighteen times. I mean, that's just freaking wild. And what's
even crazier is that he's cast in this event what
is now eight times two thousand and nine, three hundred
and fifth for just under thirty thousand dollars. That's his
first cash on the old Hendon Mob overrunhendonmob dot Com.
Twenty eleven he got one hundredth for almost fifty five
thousand dollars. Next year, twenty twelve, he gets three hundred
and seventy six for thirty two thousand, eight hundred. A
couple of years when he doesn't cash okay fine. Twenty sixteen,
he's back two hundred and fifty ninth for thirty six thousand,
seven hundred. Twenty seventeen, he's running it back four hundred
and fifteenth for twenty seven thousand, seven hundred dollars. Again,
a couple of years off. Twenty twenty two bang six
hundred and thirtieth for twenty three k twenty twenty four
thirteen hundred and tenth for a min cash of fifteen
thousand dollars. So those are seven cashes in the w
SUP main events. That is an incredible record. I Mean,
there's there's people out there that I know that talk
about how they've played this tournament ten, fifteen, eighteen times
and they haven't cashed one. So they've cashed only once
and it's been a min cash and whatever. But not
for Jamie Shable. He is a main event grinder here.
He owns an LED lighting company out in southern California.
I think it was Santa Monica if I remember correctly.
He does host some pretty big cash games around the
LA area. That's his forte. On the last episode that
I did from that after they made the VENN final table,
you heard him talk about how you know cash games
are his jam doesn't play that many tournaments, says that
winning the WSB main events won't really change his life
financially successful business has had what looks like plenty of
success playing poker as well. But the one thing that
will change is that, even though he is allergic to dogs,
he promised his kids that if he wins, he's going
to finally be getting them a dog. So that's pretty cool. There.
Fifty six million for Chevelle, thirty seven big blinds for
him in seat five, Seat six is Han Fang. One
of the two short stacks. Fang's going to be bringing
twenty five million or seventeen big blinds to the final table.
He starts near the bottom, but I don't think that
He's somebody you want to be overlooking. He's twenty seven
years old on the younger side, not the youngest at
this final table, but one of the youngest. He's only
been playing poker since twenty twenty, yet he's already built
up a couple million dollars in live tournament earnings. He
was named the GPI Mid Major Player of the Year
for twenty twenty four. He was born in China. He
now lives in Houston, Texas. Plenty of tournament experience even
though he is just twenty seven years old. He's got
four six figure scores. Prior to this run. He won
a ws AP Circuit main event in I think it
was Tulsa twenty twenty four for one hundred and forty
four k. There that same year, he won the fifteen
hundred dollars main event at the Champions Club Fall Poker
Open for one hundred and fifty nine thousand dollars. He's
had two deep runs in the w SIP main event
twenty twenty three and twenty twenty four. Twenty twenty three,
he got three hundred and ninety six for forty thousand dollars.
Twenty twenty four, two hundred and eighty six for fifty
thousand dollars. Last December, he got fourteenth in WPT World
Championship over at the win for one hundred and twenty
three thousand dollars. So this guy can play, you know.
I've seen him around. I've seen him on some streams
as well. He can play. He will get after it. Yes,
he is a bit restricted here with his stack size
coming in just seventeen big blinds to work with, but
he's dangerous. He's coached by Michael Josop. He's been in
his corner, he's been on his rail. Josoff is a
high roller, puts in a lot of reps, online play
some tritons, has played plenty of PGT stuff. So I'm
sure that's gonna go a bit of a ways for
Han Fang. You know, of course he's gonna have to
fight off that short stack and get himself back into
the mix. But if he does that, he's he's gonna
be somebody that's gonna be really, really dangerous and could
be could be a dark horse out there. You know,
if you like to if you like to bet on
this sort of stuff and you like to take a
long shot, you know, He's probably the one that you
want to take, just given the experience and the skill
that he has. But then when you put that in
with the amount of chips that he's bringing, being on
the shorter side, you might get some good odds, is
what I'm getting at here for Han Feng seat seven,
romy Hamoud seventy nine million, firmly in second place, fifty
three big blinds to work with when things kick off.
He's from Montreal. He's one of the more relatable stories
here at the final table because he won his seat
via a satellite so that's pretty freaking cool. Away from poker,
he's an analytics manager for a Rowblocks studio. He studied
actuarial mathematics, which means that he uses math and probability
all the damn time and he uses it to estimate
rix risk. Excuse me, So it's probably pretty safe to
say that that you know this, this whole poker thing
fits right in with Romy. He's already made one WSP
final table before, but this one here, of course, is
poker's biggest title. He's got a legitimate shot at it
coming in second and here. That final table that he
made was in twenty twenty four. The WSP five hundred
dollars Salute to Warriors event foury five hundred and seventeen entries. There,
Hamood got fifth place for more than fifty seven thousand dollars.
In twenty twenty three, he won the Playground March Million
Main event up in Canada four hundred and twenty three
thousand dollars and Hamood is thirty six years old. Let's
move on over to seed eight where we got Eva Gorris,
Eva Goru, the other short sack, the shortest stacker remaining
twenty two point five million, fifteen big blinds. Forty eight
years old out of Cyprus. He is an optician by trade.
He mostly plays cash games back home in Cyprus. This
is his first trip, if he can believe it, to
the US. His friends got together bottom of a ticket
to the World Series of Poker, and here he is
in the final nine doing the damn thing. He's cashed
four tournaments at the World Series of Poker this year.
His first ever WSP cash is among them. He got
four hundred and eightieth in the Mystery Millions for thirty
six hundred and fifty dollars. He got three hundred and
seventy fourth in the Mini main event for forty six fifty.
Then he got fifteenth in the six hundred dollars Deep
Stack Championship for almost fourteen thousand dollars. Here in this one,
of course, guaranteed a million dollars. But he's going to
have some work to do if he will ladder up.
You know he did. I would say he played conservative,
playing down to the final table. So he might be
one of those short stacks that is simply hard to
kill her, or that is simply just around because he
doesn't want to put his money in right. So we'll
see how it goes for Uveagoro, of course, but he's
going to have the fewest chips to work with come Monday,
rounding out the table in seat nine. I guess we're
just leaving the best for last, or at least the
biggest for last. We got the chip leader, twenty two
year old Lucas Jumelan out of Spokane, Washington, almost two
hundred million ships, one hundred and ninety four million, and
they unbag him on Monday evening. He's got complete control
with that chip stack. I talked about how he has
more than thirty five percent of the chips in play,
that is freaking wild. We'll get into more on that
on his chip stack and his lead in a bit,
but Jumlan has said that he's been playing poker since
he was eight years old. I don't even know how
that's possible, but he says it is. Now he plays professionally.
Also did mention that he was close to giving it
up not too long ago. Didn't know that if he
could do it. His live tournament results before this summer
totaled around one hundred and eight hundred and seventy five thousand,
something like that. So maybe things just weren't going his
way out there on the grind. But here he is thankful,
of course that he didn't give it up, because he's
made the biggest and baddest final table of them all
his friends. His best friends traveled the circuit with him
around They're going to be on the rail all week.
They were in all some rail super fun loud doing
the whole damn thing. Hayden Hetland his best friend aka
Big Red. As he's going out there in the poker world,
you know, he could just become the best supporting actor
from this whole wsby Man event final table because he
is an absolute wild man and absolute character out there
on the rail. Yes he's not at the table, but
we could be talking a lot about Big Red for
these next three days with how wild and crazy he
might be getting there with his boy doing the damn
thing up there on the table. If Jumalan can close
this out, he would become the second youngest main event
champion in history. Joe Katta is the youngest twenty one
years old eleven months and twenty three days when he
won it. If Jumalan wins it, he would be twenty
two years old, four months and twenty seven days. Big
chip lead here, biggest ever, and we can get into that,
you know, straight away here I mentioned thirty five point
zero eight percent of the chips in play, largest percentage
of chips for any final table that any final table
chip leader has started with going back to two thousand
and three. I didn't look prior to them. I don't
really think the data is available, and if it is available,
I don't know how accurate it is, but I trust
this stuff. Going back to Moneymaker's year, this is the
largest percentage that any Final table chip leader has had.
He also has the largest gap in chips between his
stack and second place. Again, it's one hundred and ninety
four million for Jumlan, it's seventy nine million for Hamud
and second. That's a difference of one hundred and fifteen
million or seventy six big blinds. That is freaking wild.
How big of a gap. That is. Another way to
put this into to context, just how how big this
chip lead is. Jummalan has more chips than if you
combined second, third, and fourth play stacks. If you took
Hamoud stack seventy nine million, Chevelle stack fifty six million,
and Muller stack forty eight point five million, they do
not add up to as many chips as Jumalan has.
That is also wild. I think it's like one hundred
and eighty something million for them combined. Like, it's just crazy.
How big this chip lead is? It really really is.
I dug through all the starting stacks, the starting chip
stacks for the final table going back to two thousand
and three. Pretty sure all the information is correct. Forgive
me if there might be some mistakes in some of
the stats, but it just generally paints the picture overall.
Only once has a w S APT Main Event final
table chip leader with at least thirty percent of the
chips in play. Not one, and that was Darvin Moon
back in two thousand and nine. He had thirty points
two four percent of the chips in play. He ultimately
finished second to Joe Katta Kat had a six six run.
I hate you Ridge Ryan for still pulling that out
in our little fantasy thing back and forth, but yeah,
he ultimately beats Darvin Moon. There the other chip leaders
who had at least thirty percent of the final table
chips to start, who then went on to win. You
had Greg Ramer back in two thousand and five. Remember
Greg Ramer, he was just freaking bulldozing his way through
that main event, had a ton of chips. He had
thirty two zero point thirty nine percent of the chips
in play. Goes on to win, of course, twenty ten.
Jonathan Duhamel thirty point zero four percent of the chips.
Joe McKeon, we all remember his chip lead. He took
out dan On mcgrand new in eleventh place. He goes
on to just absolutely control that final table. It was
it was really never in doubt that Joe McKeon was
gonna win that one. It was one of the most
dominating performances that we've ever seen twenty fifteen was that
one he had thirty two point seven to five percent
of the chips in play hosting ens on. We also
heard him make some noise in this event with a
very very very deep run made the final two tables,
almost did the damn thing and it went went for
another win. Twenty nineteen for him thirty four point three
eight percent of the chips in play, and then Karry
Aldemyer already touched on him. He had thirty five point
zero six percent of the chips and play in twenty
twenty one, he went on to win, beating George Holmes.
Going back to and including two thousand and three, so
the year that Chris Moneymaker won the of his main event,
the w s B Main Event chip leaders have averaged
a third place finish in this event, so if you
average out all their finishes, they finish in at least
third place, which third place this year is worth three
point seven five million dollars. It's ten million for first,
it is six million per second, it is three point
seven million for third. Play. Only twice has the main
event chip leader finished outside of the top five and
then and both times Funnily enough, it was in ninth
place finish. You had Matthew Sue in twenty twenty two.
Now that that year was a little bit tricky, and
I had to do a little bit extra work here
because if you guys remember, I think it was because
Day eight or whatever the day was that was setting
the final table. It went so long that they ended
with ten players and they came back with ten. They
didn't come back with nine, so they come back with ten.
They played I think it was seven hands before Astra
Kniff busted. He got it all in with ace king
versus two tens I think, and it just flopped quads
for his opponent, Mickey Dueck. But that year, Matthew Sue
and espen Georstad, when there was ten players remaining, they
both had the exact same amount of chips, so they
were co main event chip leaders with ten players left.
But to try and keep everything the same throughout all
this data that I was looking at, I watched those
seven hands back on stream, right. Sorry, I went through
the Poker News reporting. So if there's narrow here we
got we got to blame Poker New, Sorry, Chad. We
gotta blame you guys. And I busted out a spreadsheet.
I did all the math on all the chips for
all the hands, because Poker News does do hand for
hand coverage, and then I saw that Matthew Sue was
the chip leader when they started nine hand and play
with hand number eight. He ultimately went on to finish
ninth that year. Back in two thousand and seven, Philip
Hilm also finished in ninth there. But other than that,
you know, it really is, it's like fifth or better
for for everyone, and usually it's third or better if
not winning the damn thing. The main event chip leader
does perform very very very well at this final table.
So knowing that and knowing some of these stats, knowing
these these chip counts, how they all shake out, you
know what can we expect at the final table? There
has been a lot of conversation out there. There always
is every single year, especially when you get some time
off and people are able to crunch some numbers, they're
able to run some sims, all that sort of stuff
that we really lean into the ICM of it. All Right,
you got ten million dollars up top. Everyone's guaranteed a
million dollars right now, the pay jumps are very very large.
The minimum pay jump is two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
That's a quarter of a million dollars. It does jump
by a quarter of a million all the way up
to six place, so it goes one million for ninth,
one point twenty five, one point five, one point seventy
five for six places. Then the pay jumps start to
get a little larger right once you get into the
final six six to fifth. It goes up five hundred
k up to two point twenty five million. From there
it goes up another five hundred k to two point
seven five million, Then it goes up a million to
three point seven five million, Then it goes up even
more than that, two point two five million to six million.
Then it goes up to ten million, a four million
page jump between second and first. And of course we
know that, you know, there are not deals allowed unfortunately
in WSP events, and in this event. I mean, yes,
people can go do what they want off to the side,
but you know, this amount of money at stake seems
like it might be difficult the times to get things done.
But you know, if we hear about it, maybe we'll
talk about it. If we don't hear about it as usual,
then you know, we got nothing to say. It is
interesting to see where everyone's ICM shakes out right now, Jumalan,
You know we talked about how big his chip lead is.
His ICM percentage is just over twenty percent, So just
just think about like those two discrepancies. He's got a
little bit more than thirty five percent of the chips
in play, but his ICM percentage is just over twenty percent.
His ICM value is six million, one hundred and eighty
eight thousand, or six million, one hundred and eighty nine thousand,
if you want to round up, so almost a full
four million dollars short of first place. Like he's his
ICM value is basically sixth place, sorry, second place, excuse
me there. No one at the final table has less
than an ICM value of two point one point eight
five million, which is basically fifth place. Two point twenty
five million, even that is fifth place. Eva gors Eva Goru.
His ICM value is two million, one hundred and eighty
five thousand, six hundred dollars, so like that is basically
fifth place. If any of these guys bust before getting
to fifth place, I mean I guess technically based on
ICM they lost some value, so that could certainly play
into how things play out on Monday. Now, it is
a little bit interesting because you have these two short sacks,
Fang and Eva Goru, who just because they are on
the shortest side of things, like, yes, their ICM value
might be right around that fifth place number, but you
know how many times are both of them or even
just one of them going to realize that, given that
they are on the shortest side of things, right, So
you know, I get it, but overall throughout, you know,
if you do this over millions and millions and millions
of times, that's that's how it's all gonna shake out.
So you know, kind of the obvious next thing to
go with is, I guess who has the most pressure
on them? From just a general narrative standpoint, like, you know,
who's got the pressure on them? You could say Lucas
Jumelan because his chip lead is so large. There's been
a lot of talk. We talked about it a lot
on this podcast here. A lot of people have been
talking about in the media just about how big his
chip lead is. Biggest chip lead entering the WSPM and
men found sab whatever. Okay, so people are expecting him
to win. I think also because of his play and
how much skill he has exuded, people are even just
more so expecting him to win. Like this isn't like
just lucky that Jumlan got here with this chip lead. Yes,
he's had some fortunate hands go his way. That happens
to everyone in every single tournament, and there are people
on the other side of the coin as well, But
Jumalan has played very very well, Like you can definitely
tell that he knows what he's doing. He studies, he
understands situations and the game flow and theory and all
of that. And the fact that he has one hundred
and ninety four million and he has more than thirty
five percent of the chips in play, and such a
big lead like this, there's a lot of expectation and
therefore a lot of pressure on him to ultimately close
this thing out. But if you want to move away
from like a narrative standpoint and move towards an ICM perspective,
he might not have that much pressure, or at least
not the most pressure. You know, because everyone's tournament equity
is worth roughly fifth place money, as we said, which
is two point twenty five million. That's more than double
what they're guaranteed, which is a million dollars. Jubalan is
the player who's most likely to realize closer to his
ICM value than anyone else just given the starting point
at how many chips that he has, he I mean,
he could really not do anything. Like, yes, we you
know he's likely gonna do a lot, and we want
him to do a lot because that's more exciting. But
he could just sit back and do nothing and get
pretty close to that ICM value, right, Like that's how
it could shake out. He's the one player who has
the freedom to attack and attack at will. Now he
doesn't need to, nor do I think he really wants
to play huge pots. So, like, don't mistake the aggressiveness
that he's that we think he's going to come in
with and that he's likely to take on with the
fact that he wants to just play a pot worth
I don't know, fifty sixty eighty million chips, whatever it
may be, you know, because the money that he's going
to be making overall throughout this whole final table is
just like through the red right just just winning pot
after pot after pot and keeping the pressure on everyone else,
really really leaning on those other stacks, most notably the
middling stacks, you know, that middle bunch of players, you know,
picking up the blinds and anties, continuation, betting on flops,
three betting pre flop, you know, being able, he's the
one who can really put everyone else to the test
in spots that's gonna make them feel extremely uncomfortable, right,
he can really force everyone into those uncomfortable decisions. He's
got a really good seat at the table as well.
He's got second in chips Rami Hamood two to his right,
and that's extremely beneficial because the best place to be
pre flop is going to be on the button for everyone,
right in any poker tournament, like you ultimately want the position.
When Hamood's on the button, he's got to deal with
Jumlan in the big blind. So that's going to handcuff
a Mood a bit more so because he knows that
no matter what he does on the button, like if
he raises, it's likely that Jumlan is going to be
coming along and then make life difficult for him post flop.
And this also just isn't some chip leader, as I've
talked about, who's just gonna, like, I don't know, play
kind of straightforward ABC poker and you know, not really
take advantage to the full extent that he should with
his chipstack. Jumlan is going to do that. In my opinion.
He's a very very good player, and I think he
recognizes the situation that he is in where he can
really really lean on everyone. So he's got a really
good seat, you know, to make to make to make
life even better. As if one hundred ninety four million
and thirty five percent of the chips and play wasn't
great enough for this guy he's got, he's got an
incredible position at the table. Now, speaking of Hamoud, you know,
he may be the most handcuffed player at the table.
You know, of course he Now he is in second place.
He's comfortably in second place with the seventy nine million,
which is fourteen point three percent of the chips in play.
He's got an ICM value of just over four million.
But he's going to be incentivized to really wade out,
you know, some of these shorter stacks Fang and Evil
Goru for sure, right, Also coupled with that positioning where
he is too to the right of Jumalan. So it's
going to make life a little bit difficult for Hamud,
you know. I think that again, his button opens are
probably going to be a little bit restricted, even like
later positions cut off when Jumalan is still to act.
I mean, just any time he really wants to get active,
he's got to worry about Jumalan being behind him. To
be honest, the best position for Hamud to maybe get
a little bit more free with everything would be from
under the gun, because that's when Jumalan in relation to Hamud,
is going to be at his earliest position, and because
Jumalan will then have so many players still to act
behind him, you know, he might not be able to
get as liberal with his pressure that he's putting on
ham Mood. So maybe we look for that early on,
is that when Hamoud is under the gun, that's when
he says, you know what, this is when I'm gonna
get a little bit more liberal, go outside the box
a little bit more. I'm gonna be restricted more in
my later positions button and cut off right, But when
it's under the gun, then then okay, let's go from there. Now,
I will also say that when Hamood is the big
blind or the small blind and Jumlan gets out of
the way from either under the gun or under the
gun plus one, that's gonna effectively make Hamood the chip leader.
So that's also going to open things up for him,
and then the other players at the table need to
recognize that. Okay, now, this guy, even though the chip
the overall the overwhelming chip leader, did fold and get
out of the way, we still got to worry about
this guy because now he is basically the de facto chipleader.
So we do have to be worried about possibly opening
into his big blind his small blind and him playing
back at us and us, you know, worrying about that guy,
you know, especially these middling bunch of stacks who are
really keeping an eye on Fang and Eva go Uru
as the short stack. So just kind of keep all
that in mind. I personally think we're gonna start slow
to this final table. I'm just drawing from that where
these guys have had a little bit of time now
to let the whole ic M thing sink in, right,
And I also I watched a bit of how they
played down towards the final table and I thought generally
everyone played pretty conservative, right, so I think that's just
gonna carry over. You know, people are gonna play conservative here,
and I, you know Eva Goru for you know, also
like I don't think he's just gonna be blasting it
in even though he is the shortest stack. I think
he's gonna be cockroach like and it's gonna be hard
to kill him. So now that brings us to the
to the middling sacks. Jamie Shevell, Greg Mueller, Michael Gaglianamar Boose,
and Lori Sasclotti. They've all got between I think twenty
five and thirty seven big linds. If I remember correctly,
they all have enough chips that they're not in any
sort of danger to start. They can certainly go on
a run and become a big stack pretty early, eventually
go on to win the thing, or at least to
really really challenge to win the thing. But one bad
decision when you have Fang on seventeen big lines, when
you have evagor around fifteen big lines, you know that
one bad decision could cost them millions of dollars in equity.
You know their ICM value is anywhere between two point
eight million and three point four million. They don't want,
like none of these guys for sure out of event,
Like these guys definitely don't want to go out ninth
or even go out eighth and just get a million
dollars or one point twenty five like that would just
be an absolute disaster for those guys. So I think
these guys are going to be playing really, really really
snug early on. I guess the one wild card that
I don't know about in this bunch is Lori Sasclotti
not a professional player. He'll tell you that. Is he
gonna be Is he gonna kind of just come out
swing it? I don't know, you know, maybe he's the
one guy that that might. I think Gagliano is obviously
well versed in all this sort of final table dynamics
and situations. He's just gonna do what he does, you know,
and I think he's probably just gonna end up locking down.
Jamie Chavelle, I think is probably gonna be on the
more locket down side. Greg Mueller, I don't know, kind
of a live pro, you know who, Not that I
think Greg's gonna make mistakes, But I think I think
Greg has been pretty open with the fact that Nolan
could hold him in these spots like that's not his forte.
Not that he's not a very good player and he's
able to figure things out because he's got a lot
of talent and we're not saying that, but maybe he
gets himself into a bigger pot than he should be
playing at a time when he shouldn't be playing it,
and that ultimately costs you know, Greg Mueller or something.
So it's gonna be really interesting to see what happens.
And also the longer that these guys kind of lock down,
I would say, the more free range Jumalan has to
just do whatever he wants and continue to chip up
and chip up and chip up and just really really
widen that gap. Let's talk about the two short stacks
as well. Han Fang Eva, gors Eva, Gooru. You know, yes,
they're the two shortest stacks. They have every reason to
weigh each other out. You know, Fang's gonna be got,
It's gonna have one eye over on Eva gor Evigora
is gonna have one eye over on Fang. That said,
you know, this isn't like you just have one short stack.
This is you have two short stacks, so first and
foremost they're gonna kind of be looking at each other,
you know, which again leads to the fact that or
the idea that I think we're gonna start a little
bit slower here early on. Of course, cards generally speak,
and if if the deck just cooperates in a way
that we get some exciting bangers right out to shoot,
then I mean, so be it, let's go. But I
think we're gonna start on the slower side of things.
Fang and Eva Goru. I would also expect where some
of these other players, you know, if they do come in,
I think they're going to come in for the standard raises,
you know, just a just a min raise. Fang and Evagoru.
I think it's going to be more at least at
least maybe for like the first hand or two that
they play might just be an open jam, right or
a three bed jam. They just don't have that many
chips to work with, so I think, you know, off
fifteen seventeen big lines, maybe we see them just get
after it. In that sense, when it comes to like
who has the biggest pressure, I don't know, the pressure
is kind of different depending on you know, how you
look at it right. So while Jumalan, you know, he's
he's under the biggest part of the spotlight. But it's
more so that when you move from narrative to the
ICM perspective side of things, the middle stacks are the
ones that are under the most pressure. And then then
back to Jumalan, is that's what's going to allow Jumalan
to chip up earlier. These other guys are going to
kind of have to sit and wait to see what
happens with Fang or Evil go And also if Fang
or Evil Goru, if either one of them double, this
doesn't really change a ton. I mean, I guess it
depends on who they double through. Like if Fang doubles
through Sascolatti, for example, then Sascolotti becomes very short. But
no matter what happens, if if nobody busts, then it's
only gonna benefit Juamlan in my opinion, because even if
somebody else gets shorter, the situation is kind of the same.
You have the short stack that people is waiting, that
everyone's waiting. The person out Juamlan is going to have
all that power to do what he wants. So even
if let's say Fang doubles through Jumlan. Jumalan takes a
tiny bit of a hit, not that big of a
deal in the grand scheme of things, Eva Gore is
still left short over there, so Juamlan can just get
right back to work, right, same thing. If you know
Evia Goru doubles through through Jumalan, or Evi a Goru
doubles through Hamood, you know, like that's where Hamod right,
he's the one that's not gonna want to double anyone
up because if he doubles up one of the shorts stack,
he's gonna get sucked back down into that group of Chevelle, Mueller,
Gagliano Boos, Sasclotti, where he was once comfortably in second place. Yes,
he still has a bit of a jail cell around him.
He has to worry about things and play cautiously. But
you don't. You're comfortably in second right. You can almost
maneuver your way to the top three if things go
your way, of course, but you don't want to get
sucked back down into that group and have to fight
with those other five or six players. Right, So, I
don't know, I think we're in for a bit of
a KG match here. You know, like if this was
a boxing match, it's the first couple of rounds where
they're throwing some punches, but they're not really letting it
go just because they're still trying to feel each other out.
Whereas Jummalan, you know, he's just gonna be like NonStop
jab jab jab jab jab, like just constantly on the offensive,
but not in a way that he's throwing big haymakers,
big uppercuts. He's just gonna be constantly just like picking
people apart as what he's going to be looking to do.
It's always to see how these spots play out in
such a big money situation, and this is the biggest
money situation of them all, but also a lot of
craziness can happen early on that just you think it's
gonna go one way and then all of a sudden,
it's just like bang bang bang bang bang, What the
heck just happened? I mean, last year we all go
into it and it's all of a sudden like bang
bang bang bang bang. Michael Mans, Rocky has all the
freaking chips. Where did everyone go? What the heck just happened?
We're like already heads up, it's been two hours of play,
can we like chill for a second. I don't think
we're gonna get a repeat of that, but heck, you
never know, right which player of the other eight, I mean,
obviously other than Jumalan, would I personally like to see
double up early? Interesting thought there, you know, I was
trying to think, like, you know who who if they
double up early, like really kind of excites me, like,
oh this is cool. Now it gets a little bit different,
and I think that's Han Fang. And if he's let's
just say, for you know, simplicity, here he goes from
what he starts with twenty five million, he gets up
to fifty million. Depending on who he doubles through. You know,
that puts him in the upper portion of the stacks.
You know, maybe he doesn't. If he doubles through Jamie Schavelle,
he's he's then up into third place. If he doesn't
double through him and doubles through someone else, he's up
into you know, fourth or third or fourth place. Right,
So he's like right there. I think if someone like
a Greg Mueller doubles up, I don't think all that
much changes. Same with Michael Gagliano saying with Chevelle, saying
with Boose Sascolatti, like, you know, I mean, I guess
maybe if Hamoud doubles up and he would have to
double up through Lucas Jumalan, then maybe that changes things.
But I don't know if Hamoud's going to really be
driving the bus like we want him to be driving
the bus. I think the most exciting person would be
Han feg You know, again, he only starts with that
twenty five million, But I think given the way that
I know he likes to play, or I think he
likes to play from some of the stuff that I've
seen with him, both in this event, you know, earlier
on when he had some chips, but then also in
some other streams that he's been on, Like he'll certainly
be one to get after it, at least as much
as he's allowed. To couple that with your fresh off
of double up, you're feeling good. You know, the wind
is at your back, you got that momentum, Like maybe
he can start to find some of these other spots
to chip up a little bit more, and it really
starts to kind of change the dynamics of this whole thing,
you know. I think I think also when you're on
the younger side of things, and he's one of the
younger ones at this final table, being just twenty seven
years old. You just generally have an overall confidence about
you that at times can border on cocky. We were
all like it, myself included. Not that it's a bad thing,
but it can allow you to just really go after
things when maybe someone else might be like, you know what,
maybe that's too risky for me to dip my toes
in over there. But if you're someone like a Fang,
you just go for it. So I think overall that
would be the most fun is if he's able to
double up early. It would it would it would be cool,
you know, it just could I would say it could
unlock him, you know he I think right now, we
talked about his coach, Michael Joseph. Michael josef is a
well studied pro who plays a lot of high stakes
you know. I think he's going to be coaching Han
To to play basically situational ice in poker, which is
boring for lack of a better term. And I think
a lot of what we saw from Fang in the
later stages playing down to the finals, it was we
saw just that. I don't think he ultimately wants to
play this way. I think he's a very good aggressive
player when the situation calls for it and he's allowed
to do that sort of stuff, but also when you're
just handcuffed, you're just handcoffed. If he is able to
get a double up relatively early on, I think he's
gonna be willing to keep pushing a little bit more
so than let's say, if someone like an Eva Gouru
the other short stack, if he was able to double
I think he just doubles up and kind of just
sits back a little bit more. So. You know, Fang
is the one who I would like to see double
up early or first, however you want to put that,
And you know, I think it gives him a lot
of momentum that that would lean into a lot more
fun to kind of make this one a little bit
more chaotic at the At the start here, I was
also trying to think about who is the player most
likely to finish, not where they start. Basically, if you
just take everyone's starting position and say, okay, Lucas Jumlans
starts in first place, he's got this spinning chips Okay,
he's most likely to finish them first. This thing, you know,
and you just as sign it like that, I would
say it's probably Greg Mueller. I just think when it
comes to Greg Mueller, he starts in fourth. He's got
forty eight point five million, that's eight point seven percent
of the chips in play. I think he's got the
widest range of outcome. We talked about a little bit
earlier when I talked about some of his his bio stuff.
You know, he's got arguably more experience, especially in the
live realm. I mean, Gagliano is probably the most overall
experienced player, Like he's played the most hands, the most tournaments,
all that sort of stuff. Live focus probably more Greg
Mueller than Gagliano because Gagliano has got the online stuff.
So as an overall experience thing, it's Gagliano, But as
an experience in the live realm, it's probably Greg Mueller.
You know, he's played for bracelets, He's got three of them.
He's got all those other seconds and thirds as well,
a bunch of final tables. He's been under the bright lights,
the cameras, all that sort of stuff. I think also,
like you know, being a professional hockey player at times,
or semipro or whatever it was, like that also helps,
you know, just dealing with with high pressure competitive situations.
I So what I'm saying is I don't expect the
stage to be too big for him, you know, the
money to own, overwhelm him, all that sort of stuff.
But I also think that him being more of a
live player, a field player, somebody that relies on reads
his pure talent of things that might to allow him
to identify some spots that he might want to take
where other players are unwilling to take them. I'm going
to use the word carelessness, but I don't know if
that's exactly the right word, and I'm probably just getting
that wrong. Where Greg made a lot of talk about
how he was kind of just going through the motions.
It took that tough love from his good friend Sean
Buchan to kind of kick his ass into gear. And
now he's made it here and he's nine or one
million dollars and this is incredible. So does he just
kind of let it flow a little bit more and
maybe get himself into some spots that he maybe shouldn't
be in. I don't know, maybe I'm just reading a
little bit too into it when it comes to Mueller,
but I could just see him kind of just playing
a big one at a time when we kind of
are like, wait, why is this pot all of a sudden,
you know, seventy five eight eighty million, and you know
it's it's Greg and whoever, and they're just just going
for it. There's the other side of that too, where
he could get in that situation and he could he
could win that situation, and he could come out on
the other side positive, and he could accumulate all those chips,
and then he could all of a sudden, you know,
Greg's got ninety million in chips, He's in second place,
he's feeling freaking pumped up, and he's just like he's
going for it right Like he's he's on that rush
that you know live players feel where they're like, okay,
like let's go, let's go. And he's just driving, drive
and driving, and then all of a sudden, it's like
he's charging up on Jumalan. So I don't know, I
just feel like the range of outcomes from Ler are
really all over the place at this final table. I
love the guy. I think he's got great character here,
certainly lively. Maybe at times the coaching and a lot
of the talk that he's been doing with his good
friend Bucky, maybe that does rein him in. But also
maybe he's just you know, I don't know, gets his
hand caught in the cookie jar at the wrong situation,
and next thing you know, he's busted in eighth. I
don't know. I feel like Greg could win this tournament.
He could also be out in ninth, whereas some of
the other players. I think it's a little bit fine
or a fine line with you know, fine lines I
should say for where they're going to finish, you know,
the top and the bottom. But I also think that
they don't they might not necessarily have the ceiling that
me what has here. Somebody asked this question to me
the other day, just a friend of mine who he's
he likes poker, but he's not like a super die hard.
But you know, every time the main event comes around,
of course they're into it. He said, you know, is
who's who's the best winner for poker? Made me think,
you know, so who is out of this bunch of nine,
who is the best winner for poker? And how I
interpreted that is is who creates the most interest in
the game beyond like the fellow Donnie Peters is of
the world, like the people who are really in it,
and also likely you guys out there who are listening.
You know, you guys, the listeners to this podcast are
certainly more die hard than a common poker fan. Like,
it's not even close. So, you know, how does this
kind of resonate a little bit further than that? Is
it Jumlan twenty two years old, the kid with this
huge tip lead? Is it Mueller who I just talked
about that established pro do. We get a little bit
of buzz from Hammoud because he's a guy who has
a regular job, is a satellite qualifier, Obviously everyone's going
to lean into that, you know. Or is it someone
like a Sascolatti or Evoguru who are more the amateur
with full time job full time jobs? You know, so
you can kind of go every way with all these
different stories here, I lean and I thought about this
for quite a bit of time. I landed on Mueller,
you know, I know, I just talked about how I
think his range of outcomes is the widest here. And
I don't think that Mueller and I'm not trying to
throw any shade here, but I think he would probably
admit it as well, which is fine. I don't think
he's the best technical player at this table. That doesn't
mean he can't win, because any of these guys can win,
but I think he's the player who has the strongest
built in story. He's got the ties to the hockey,
to the sports, former professional hockey player, he's got the
three time bracelet or three time bracelet winner. He's respected,
well liked in the industry. You know, the big names,
the pros, they've they all know him, they've played with him,
like all that sort of stuff. So if Mueller does
go on to win, you've got a champion who is
also great personality, lively, colorful, not going to shy away
from the spotlight, going to talk to anyone that throws
a camera or a microphone in his face, and he's
going to be great at that stuff because he's done
it forever. You've got a winner that the large majority
of the poker world already knows the sports world, which
Greg does have a lot of ties to. You know,
like you heard what was it the coach of the
Ottawa Senators or something like it was calling him after
he made the mother like he had like those people
can they can immediately understand him and like they're immediately
drawn in because this guy guy just won. I think
you get that tie in from an international media sense
because he's Canadian. I saw there was at least I
was on Facebook the other day I saw, or maybe
it was Instagram, I can't remember, but he posted something
where the media in Vancouver came and they did a
little hit at his house. It was on the news,
like all that sort of stuff. So like, that's that's cool, right.
I get a little feeling of Joe Hasham and Australia.
I don't think it's gonna be big as what Joe
Hasham did for Australia, you know, and it's also just
a different era. It's a different time. But Hashim winning
wasn't just good for Joe. It helped do good things
for poker in Australia, and I think that Mueller could
have a small piece of that success for what it
could do for Canada and how it could resonate that way. Again,
not to throw shade on anyone here, I just don't
think that Romihamu has that same sort of pull name
brand wise that Greg Mueller does. In this sense, I
think I can also make the argument that that Jumalan,
a twenty two year old chip leader becoming the world champion,
you know, second youngest ever behind only Joekatta. You know,
there's obviously a lot of talk in recent years about
how there's kind of fewer and fewer younger kids getting
into the game just because online poker isn't as widespread
as it once was, all that sort of stuff. So
I think, you know, he could be a really really
good champion as well, a really good one for poker
as a whole. I also think he's someone who's going
to just keep on blasting. I think a lot of
that stuff there are stories that do kind of just
come and go, and we get those every single year
and we recycle them. I think Mueller has that built
in reputation that's already there. He's got a following, he's
got a bit of credibility to him as well. If
he wins, I think people are for sure still talking
about him six months from now. I think that that's
generally healthy for poker now. I also do want to
be careful in saying that he's the biggest draw, because
I'm not sure, Yes, he might be the biggest draw,
but I think you can make an argument for draw
for kind of all these people. And I'm not going
to say that he's some sort of household name outside
of the poker world, right, It's just there's like two
of those players in all of poker. But I say
he has the most recognizable and accomplished figure remaining right now.
I will also say that one thing that does worry
me about Mueller is something that he said on that
face these podcast with Remco where if he does go
on to win and win ten million dollars, we might
only see him going forward for the fifty k PPC
and the ten k main event, like that's all he'll
play than that. Like he's got ten million dollars retirement money.
He's gonna be on the golf course NonStop, doesn't need
to grind whatever. So if we want someone to win
who ultimately stays in poker and like is always around
as a face of the industry, then maybe it's not Greg, right.
So it's just it's it's interesting, But I think for
right now, at least I lean with Greg Muellers that's
my answer. There. I got two more kind of thoughts
here that I've been brewin with, and then we'll get
on out of here. I know we're a little bit
on the longer side for this episode, but I mean
this is that I basically made have been found table
that would leading into babies. So let's go. We've talked
about Jumalan, his chip stack, his positioning. I think it's
safe to say he's the most likely to win this.
Of course, there's still a lot to happen. There's three
days of poker ahead of us. Knowing that that he
you know, let's give him the most likely chance to win.
Would Lucas Jumlan immediately become a major poker star. Now,
of course you have to think of that in relative
terms to the era that we are in. He's twenty two,
he's the chip leader of this tournament, the biggest spot
of his life. He's gotten a lot of media coverage already.
He's already a professional, which I think helps. Is all
that enough or is it more about like his what's
his willingness, his personality, his appetite to stay visible and
what do we get out of him going forward? So
I don't know if there's a question there or not.
I'm just trying to think, like what happens basically if
Juemlan does go on to win, whereas he is the
most likely person to do that, right, everything that I've
gathered from this kid, he was just on the Poker
Weekly Show on Serious XM with Nick Shulman. I thought
he was great on there like that. I think he
wants it. I think he wants the spotlight. I think
he wants to start right. I mean now, he's only
twenty two, but I still think he wants it. And
because I think he wants it, because I think I
know he's really fucking good at this game. He's already
a pro. So, like, you don't need to worry about that.
Maybe that questionable bull nature of like you know, should
I yes, I can have a lot of money, but
if I leave and get into this new thing, you know,
am I going to make a fool out of myself?
He's already a pro, like, so I don't think we
need to worry about that. I think he's somebody who
just immediately like starts playing big high roller events, he
starts playing trite and stuff, he starts playing PGT stuff,
like whatever it is, you name it. I mean, the
kid's got ten million dollars now and you know, obviously
minus taxes, pieces whatever. But he's going to have a
large chunk of money, and I think he's just going
to be out there going for it. Whereas we just
talked about Mueller, who he said on that podcast with
Remco that maybe he just comes out for those couple
of events. And we've seen it in the past where
you have someone like a couple of years ago, Dan
Wyman doesn't play that much anymore, you know, won the
main event, was kind of already trying to get out
of poker, then wins it. Anyway, Now he comes out
for a few events here and there, and that's it.
We've obviously seen plenty of WSP main event winners over
the years. They're really not just in it daily as
they used to be. I think Jumalan will be in it,
like I think he will just be doing the damn thing.
I also think you're gonna get it's not only gonna
be him, You're gonna get his whole friend group that's
just tagging along traveling the world, grinding tournaments together. Like
I think that entire group could just start moving up
in stakes. You know, you got jumalans as the kingpin.
You know he's willing to take pieces of all these guys.
Let's just go right and they've become familiar faces like that.
That to me is is cool. I think Jumlan has
the game to back it up. I think a lot
of people out there who have watched his game would
agree with that. He's if you watch the stuff that
he does at the table, if you hear him talk
about hands, which he has done a bit, now, I
think you get a good sense that he really is
pinned down on how poker should be played, how it
should be played specifically in this spot. He is rooted
in a lot of theory with stuff, even though he
is only twenty two years old. So I think it's
it's really cool. You know, winning the w CB main Events.
It doesn't automatically make you an elite player just because
you happen to conquer the biggest and best poker tournament
in the world, right, But I think that Jumalan is
already an elite player. So now if he does go
on to win this, he's going to have the ability
and the bank roll to then go on to compete
on even bigger stages. Right, some players that have won
this event, you know, they haven't jumped up in stakes,
or maybe they did try and it didn't go their
way so they kind of backed off. Other people have
straight up won of the main event and said, oh,
I'll see you later. I don't really need to be around.
But I think Jumalan here, I think he's gonna embrace
the opportunity and he could really light the poker world
on fire. So that that's something that I would look
at with Jim a lot. I would also put Han
Fang in that same category. He's got a lot more
work to do given where he starts at this final table.
And maybe it doesn't take a win from either these guys,
of course, because multiple millions of dollars, even if you
finish anywhere else at the table, could launch you into
doing some big things. But I think that Han Fang,
like he's shown a willingness to fire a big schedule,
play some bigger events. He's only twenty seven, so on
the younger side, he's really built an impressive resume in
a short period of time. We mentioned earlier, he's only
been playing poker since twenty twenty, so you know, whether
he wins or not. I could also see Fang becoming
a much bigger presence in poker over the next few
years on some of those bigger stages. You know, we've
seen main evan champions go really in two completely different directions.
Some win and just you know, largely disappear, right, Yeah,
Like there are some that ultimately completely disappear. There are
some that pop in every so often. For others. It
really is a launching pan. I think for for Jumlan,
it's definitely going to be a launching pad to bigger
and better things. And I think part of that launching
is up into poker stardom. And then lastly, here what
kind of champion does poker need? Or should we even
think about things in this way? I mean, it's it's
so hard because on one side of things, building off
of what I just talked about, I think poker does
need someone and also wants someone who wants the role.
They want to be the wasp manum and champion. And
I know it's easy for people out there to say, yes,
I want to be the was to be Man of
n champion, but do you want everything that comes with
it or the expectations that come with it, I should say, right,
I know, it's a lot to put on someone who
just want a poker turn to dumb it down. Now.
It's interesting because everyone signs up, and I think that
they tell themselves that they want to win the event.
Myself included, like like, I'm in this camp too, like
of all the people and thinking like, yes, I want
to win. I want to win ten million dollars whatever
it is. I want to win the bracelet, I want
to be the world champion, all that sort of stuff.
But do people also want to just become the de
facto ambassador for poker for at least a year, if
not longer, because whether you like it or not, that
comes with the territory like that that that that just happens.
You can't I mean, yes, you can omit that responsibility,
even if it is a full responsibility if you want to,
you know, go that far with it. But the winner
does become the face of the game for at least
a year again, if not longer. You know, as long
as that person doesn't disappear and they keep playing and
keep showing up like they're going to be the face
of the game. So yeah, poker wants someone who's going
to keep playing, They're going to keep showing up. They
I mean, maybe you don't have to like go on
full on vlogging to what I'm about to say next,
but you allow people to fall along with you and
follow your journey, and you're out there and you're doing it.
I guess this goes back to what I questioned about Mueller,
just based on what he says. We're like, hey, you
might not see me that much anymore because I'm just
gonna have retirement money versus someone like Jumalan, Like, I
think he's out there right. Not that this is smoke,
but I think the kid wants to smoke like that.
That's my read on him. I think every player at
this final table has a story that we can lean
into and build around it. Jumalan's that that young chip leader,
just twenty two years old, got the friend group behind him,
the relationship with his dad. Mueller is the accomplished vet
who's got the ties to sports, who was falling out
of love with the game and now he's got that
all back. Amod's got the sad light entry Sasclatti and Chavelle,
they got the family stories. Their businessmen are working business,
you know, real jobs. The same with Eva Goru, right, Like,
there's all these different stories that you can tell, but
can there still be more to the story after winning
the WSP Main Event. That's what I'm looking at, is
this is this the end of the story or is
this just the start? With Jumalan, I'm looking at it
like this is just the start. Same with Han Fang,
to be honest, like I'm looking at it like this
is just a start. So those are the kind of
the two guys that I'm really looking at, more so
Jumalan than Fang, just because of he's got the best
chance to do it. So the main Event is the
biggest launching pad that poker has, but it's also only
a launching pad if you actually launch. So we've seen
those ones that have stayed visible, done the interviews, played bigger,
embraced the spotlight, all that sort of stuff. We've also
seen the ones the champions is what I'm talking about,
who have kind of just disappeared, not played as much whatever.
Maybe they've fallen out of love for the game. Maybe
they've just decided I've got retirement money now I don't
need to be grinded, whatever the heck it is. But
the ideal champion is someone who we're still talking about
two years from now, five years from now, ten years
from now. You know, my friend Mickey Doff and I
we always have this thing where we're like, hey, remember
that guy, where is he now? You know, like, we
don't want you to be that person, right. So I
know it's hard because that's a responsibility that's sort of
one of those unwritten responsibilities that just gets thrown on you.
But I do think, you know, Lucas Jumlan here, I
think I think he wants it. I do really think
the kid wants it. So it's gonna be a fun
final table. That's really all I have to talk about.
I know I ran a bit long here on today's show.
I was probably all over the place with my ramblings.
But you know, you give me, if you give me
two and a half three weeks, whatever the heck it is.
If you give me that amount of time off where
I just got to sit here and stew on the
WSP main event for many, many hours of every single day,
I'm gonna just come up with all these different thoughts
that I gotta get out and I'm getting them out
here through the Poker Go podcast. So all right, guys,
Monday evening, we have Day one of three on ESPN
two four the World Series of Poker Main Event Final Table.
The plan for us on this feed, I think, I hope.
I want my guy Remka Rinkima to be joining me
every single night for a little recap on what happened.
If he doesn't join, it doesn't matter. I'm gonna be
doing it every single night as we wrap up the
twenty twenty six World Series of Poker. The twenty twenty
six World Series of Poker Main Event, Baby, all right,
that's gonna do it for me. Donny Peter's shout out
to producer Rich thank you for getting this out. I
appreciate you, guys, and I will talk to you on
the next month. Jenny