It’s almost as if the poker world wanted to give the middle finger to every judge or jury that has ever ruled poker isn’t a game of skill. Six of the nine players at the final table of the 2009 WSOP Europe Main Event are previous bracelet winners and two are members of this years November Nine.

Leading the way is 2009 bracelet winner Jason Mercier with 3,198,000 chips. Mercier, who also has a European Poker Tour title to his credit, eliminated six of the final 15 players sent packing on Wednesday including final table bubble boy Eric Liu. Not surprisingly Mercier held the chip lead for the final seven hours of play.

James Akenhead, who will return to Las Vegas in November as the official November Nine short stack, won’t have that problem at this final table. The 23 year old Brit sits in second with 1,398,000 chips. He took out three players on his way to that stack including Doyle Brunson.

The other member of the November Nine to make the final table in London is Antoine Saout. The Frenchman sits sixth with 701,000. The biggest name left though is that of Daniel Negreanu. The four-time bracelet winner, who collected his fourth last summer, is the short stack with 438,000.

Other bracelet winners to make the final table were Matt Hawrilenko, Praz Bansi, Chris Bjorin and Barry Shulman. Shulman is the father of November Niner Jeff Shulman.

Play started with 36 players and after 12 hours was down to the final nine. Those who busted out included WSOP-cashes-without-a-bracelet record holder Tony Cousineau (13th - £40,481), Ram Vaswani (15th - £40,481), Brunson (17th - £31,198) and Liz Lieu (22nd - £25,918).

The star studded final table will began Thursday at 2 pm BST.

WSOP Europe Main Event Final Table Chip Counts

1. Jason Mercier - 3,198,000
2. James Akenhead - 1,398,000
3. Praz Bansi - 1,160,000
4. Barry Shulman - 1,090,000
5. Markus Ristola - 784,000
6. Antoine Saout - 701,000
7. Matt Hawrilenko - 674,000
8. Chris Bjorin - 518,000
9. Daniel Negreanu - 438,000

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