Darvin Moon

The HPT, founded in 2005 by Todd Anderson and Greg Lang, is a popular “minor league” poker tour that offers an alternative to centralized, expensive national tournaments, such as the World Series of Poker and the World Poker Tour, that require a great deal of costly travel and high-cost buy-ins. The HPT has paid out well around $20 dollars in prize money in the last 6 years and this year includes fifteen events in casinos all across the country.

One of the main reasons for the HPT’s success is its comprehensive system of “qualifier tournaments.” A series of satellites to the championship event of an HPT stop allow 20% of the field for each main event to qualify from the initial outlay of a very low buy-in. An additional factor – that a number of the tournaments are held in Indian casinos – means that poker players as young as eighteen are legible to participate. The HPT also has its own TV show, which is shown on comcast. The HPT has also signed a contract with the Disabled American Veterans that makes them our sponsored charity partner, the Tour supports the nation’s heroes by designating a portion of its prize pools to the nonprofit organization.

Moon, the first player to be branded by the tour, will be adorned by the HPT logo throughout the season as he plays several tournaments in its name. He was considered to be “un-signable” after refusing sponsorship during his run as a member of the November Nine, declaring: “I don’t want a boss. I’ve come this far on my own; I don’t want to answer to anybody now.”

His signing to the HPT marks a changed man and attitude: “I’m very comfortable with the HPT folks. They’re like family.” A sentiment which has been mirrored by HPT President, Todd Anderson: “Darvin is our kind of guy. He’s worked hard his entire life and now lives the dream that attracts so many to the game.”

Moon, a former logger from Maryland, made his fortune at the 2009 WSOP after winning through $130-satellite tournament and turning that into his second-place prize of $5.18 million, losing the heads-up to champion Joe Cada.

Notable HPT players who have gone on to bigger things, include: Cody Slaubaugh who has finished 2nd in a WSOP event this year, won a WSOP Circuit event and the PokerStars Sunday Million; Mike Banducci won a WSOP bracelet in the $1000 No Limit re-buy and has cashed WSOP Circuit events; Mike Simon, the 2006 WPT Reno World Poker Challenge champion; and Brook Lyter second at the 2006 WPT PokerStars Caribbean Adventure.

The last elimination was a heartbreaker as Jordan Smith was positive he had the best and got slapped right in the teeth when the cards were flipped.  Buchman opened for 650,000 and Moon made a smooth call from the button.  The next to act was Jordan Smith on the small blind and he fired out a huge raise to make it 2,600,000 to go.  Buchman immediately folded and Moon once again made the call.  The flop came out all babies, 8c4d2d. Smith probably put Moon and a mid pair and checked to set up a check-raise.  Moon bit and fired out 4,000,000 at which point Smith moved all in.  The read was right, but unfortunately the mid pair that Moon has was 88 and he had flopped a set.

The turn card made things interesting as a 5h hit and now gave Smith 4 additional outs as he could hit an inside straight.  7 cards stood in the way of the final table being named.  The river cards fell harmlessly as a 10h was turned and Smith was shown to the rail.  He has $896,730 to console him, but even that may not be enough as he has the dubious pleasure of being bubbled on the final table of a WSOP Main Event.

The pace of play was actually a rather large surprise.  27 players started the day and with what was at stake, you would have thought that the players would have slowed things down a bit.  That was hardly the case as it took only 20 minutes to get the first casualty of the day.  One of the disappointments for the fans was when Anotonio Esfandiari went out early.  He has a rather large television fan base and is great for the table when he is playing.  At this point, the only true super star remaining was Phil Ivey.

Ivey never seemed to get going on the day, in fact he dropped about 2,000,000 from his starting total, but he did manage to avoid elimination and we all know anything can happen on a final table.  You can bet he will try and find out everything he can about his 8 opponents before they all sit down for a friendly SNG tournament from November 7th – 10th.

Here are the final table chip counts for the November Nine:

Darvin Moon – 58,930,000

It is the end of Day 7 for all of the 27 players remaining and the 11th total day for the tournament. The biggest news has to be the presence of Phil Ivey who is 4th in at the end of the day. He has put his large chip stack to work by punishing the rest of the field. It will be his first cash in the Main Event since being bounced on a bad beat by Chris Moneymaker in 2003, a hand that was immortalized as one of the best hands of the year. He has to be the odds on favorite to win the title as he is one of only a few professionals remaining. He is within firing distance of the chip leader, Darvin Moon, who has over 20 million in chips. Ivey sits with just over 11 million.

Another notable pro who is remaining in the tournament is Antonio Esfandiari. With a little over 4 million in chips is on the short end of the field. Esfandiari has seen little success in the WSOP and has a small fan base thanks to other televised poker events such as High Stakes Poker and the WPT. He has a very good skill set and can be dangerous at any point in a tournament so he is one to watch out for, but “The Magician” needs to have a few tricks up his sleeve to take down this bracelet.

After today, the ”November Nine” will be set, so look for updates on the tournament along with player profiles right here.

With only 27 players remaining, the pressure gets turned up and we will see what these guys are made of.  While most of the pros that have entered have since gone to the rail, two names are still glaring on the leader board.  Antonia Esfandiari (4,470,000) has never really had a truly great run of cards, but he seems to make the most of every hand that he is involved in.  He is grinding away and continues to survive.  His style of play is ideal in this type of tourney and while he may never get that monster stack, do not be surprised to see his name on the final table.

The one person that everyone has to fear at this point is Phil Ivey (11,350,000).  He is currently sitting in 4th place, but that doesn’t really matter.  As he has been having an incredible WSOP, the rest of the field must take notice and beware of any hand that they play with him.  He has a tendency to go early or go deep and deep is obviously the case here. Only one other player managed to get three bracelets this time around and Phil obviously has his heart set on being the second one to hold that honor this year.

While the rest of the players are going after the bracelet and the $8,546,435 that goes with it, Phil Ivey probably stands to make more in side bets were he to take down the Main Event.  Everyone knows he loves to gamble and the circuit that he hangs around in is not scared to throw out a $1,000,000 on anything.  You can rest assured that if Phil makes it to the final table, the gallery will be a star studded field of poker superstars with their hands in their wallets.

The overall leader of the tournament is an unknown player by the name of Darvin Moon (20,160,000).  He has never had a cash in the WSOP and has sure picked a great time to break his cherry.  At this point, all of the players are guaranteed well over $300,000 and once they get it down to two tables, the payouts start to increase significantly.

Unfortunately for Moon, he will have to sit across from Ivey when play resumes.  You can be assured that his eye balls will be popping out of their sockets when he sees that chip stack and make it is sole purpose in life to move it across to his side of the table.  How will Moon handle the pressure of being the big stack with one of the greatest poker players in the world on his table?  Only time will tell, but we should have that answer in about 24 hours.