PokerNews Predictions for the November Nine

There’s a new article over on PokerNews sharing predictions of staff and contributors for next week’s November Nine which gets underway a week from today. Kind of a fun way to remind yourself who the final nine players are and some of the stories that’ll be in play when things get going again (finally).

I participated in something similar at the start of this year’s WSOP when we made some predictions for the series. Can’t say mine were all that remarkable, although it’s kind of interesting to look back and compare all the prognostications with what actually happened.

Looking back, none of us picked George Danzer to win this year’s WSOP Player of the Year. Several of us (including myself) said Ole Schemion would be the newcomer with the biggest impact (he didn’t cash).

I said neither Phil Ivey nor Daniel Negreanu would win a bracelet, and Ivey snagged one while Negreanu nearly won two (getting two runner-ups). I did say “three final tables between them,” though, which turned out to be correct.

When asked to guess the total number of entrants in the Main Event, I went a little high (7,039). Brett Collson got closest to the actual total of 6,683 by guessing 6,700.

None of us guessed correctly who would win the “Big One for One Drop.” Meanwhile I got a couple of easy ones, guessing that neither Chris Ferguson nor Howard Lederer would be playing any events and selecting Michael Mizrachi as a “big-name pro” who would have a disappointing series (he had two small cashes).

Among this new set of predictions, I chose Martin Jacobson to win despite being eighth in chips entering the final table. I also decided on 295 hands as the number needed to complete the final table with 71 hands of heads-up. And for a “bold prediction” I said two players would get knocked out on one hand.

Head over and see the whole list of questions and what everyone else came up with in the way of answers.