Tampa Bay resident John Racener is in Las Vegas, ready to face down eight others in his quest to be Poker's champion of the world.
After a four month wait, the final table in the 2010 World Series of Poker Main Event begins today.
The massive field of 7,319 poker players began play in July, and over ten days, that number was whittled down to the final nine. In order to keep ESPN's broadcast of the tournament relevant, the WSOP takes a long break before the "November Nine" meet up at the last table to finish the series.
Play will continue through the weekend until two players remain, and the final two will play down to a winner on Monday. The winner of this year’s Main will take home $8,944,310 in prize money and the nine players are playing for $29,032,637 -- an average of more than $3.2 million each.
Racener, from Port Richey, has already been guaranteed $800,000 for reaching the November Nine, and we wish him luck -- it's poker, after all -- in getting that big pot of money.
To learn more about our hometown poker pro, check out a the feature done on him from the St. Pete Times, read about his recent appearance on the King David radio program, and take a look around the John Racener website.
World Series of Poker online - http://www.wsop.com/
Live coverage - http://www.wsop.com/wsop/console.aspx
Image above courtesy Kismis Ink Photography