November Nine
final table at the Main Event of the World Series of Poker
The November Nine was the name used to refer to the final nine contestants, or final table, at the Main Event of the World Series of Poker (WSOP) from 2008 to 2016. The winner of the WSOP Main Event is considered to be the World Champion of Poker.
Prior to 2008, the entire Main Event was played without interruption. Starting in 2008, in an effort to build excitement in the WSOP and to increase ratings for the tape-delayed televised shows, Harrah's Entertainment and ESPN decided to delay the final table until shortly before its scheduled broadcast. The delay would allow ESPN to cover the rest of the tournament leading up to the final table without viewers knowing the winner in advance. Due to the timing of U.S. presidential elections, the final tables for the 2012 and 2016 Main Events were held in October.
In 2017, Poker Central announced a television and digital media rights agreement with the WSOP and ESPN which returned the final table to the tail end of the rest of the tournament.
Reception and criticism
After the announcement was made to delay the final table, concerns arose as to how the delay would affect the tournament. Ylon Schwartz, a 2008 November Nine participant, criticized the four-month delay by saying, "It ruins the integrity of the tournament. The purity of old-time Las Vegas is gone.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “November Nine” as final table at the Main Event of the World Series of Poker. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as final table at the Main Event of the World Series of Poker. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7064785. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2008, 2016, 2012 and 2017.
Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
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Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “November Nine”, its source revision and the description used here.
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- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “November Nine” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.