Round 1: Ivey v Saout

Round 1: Who Won?

A little known fact about Team Everest Pro Antoine Saout's journey to this final table is that he spent most of the final days in July leading up to the final table playing at the same table as one, Phil Ivey! Does this give him a competitive advantage over the rest of the table possibly knowing perennial fan favorite Phil Ivey's game better than the other November Nine, I don't know...probably not! But what it does tell us is his comfort level of playing with Ivey has to be at least a notch above the other final tablists, and we might have seen our first glimpse of it moments ago when they finally went toe to toe in a pot. here's what happened:

Phil Ivey raises to $1,250,000 under the gun before Antoine re-raises to $4,050,000. Ivey gives Antoine the "Ivey Stare" before folding and giving up the pot to Antoine to a roar of cheers from the crowd.

This was the first time all day that someone has played back at Ivey, and that means that Round 1 of the Antoine Ivey war went to the Fiery Frenchman!

We will now take a 2-hour dinner break, and here is the breakdown of the chip counts as we head off to break:

Darvin Moon: 41,250,000

Phil Ivey: 14,900,000

Steve Begleiter: 38,100,000

Eric Buchman: 54,725,000

Joe Cada: 10,700,000

Antoine Saout: 28,725,000

Jeff Shulman: 7,175,000