On Sunday, November 9th, the final nine players in the World Series of Poker Main Event will head to the Penn and Teller Theater at the Rio in Las Vegas to determine whose name will be written on the first place check worth a whopping $9.1 million. Play will resume after a 117 day break with 21 minutes and 50 seconds remaining in Level 33. In the fray will be two men whose every decision will influence the outcome of the second largest tournament in WSOP history. PocketFiver Scott r_a_y Montgomery will be seated at the coveted final table, battling it out against eight other players, including Darus BejoMas Suharto. Also in the room will be Seth Palansky, Sports and Entertainment Director of Communications for Harrah’s. Both join us on this week’s PocketFives.com Podcast for a Main Event primer.

Scott r_a_y Montgomery has had his world upended in recent weeks following the conclusion of the Main Event in July. I would wager that every single person who has interviewed Montgomery has asked him if he would have preferred to play the tournament in its entirety in July rather than delay the final table until November. He responded, “I probably would have preferred to play it the next day. You’re in such a zone. You’re feeling so good and then you get down to the final table and they say, ‘OK, we’ll see you again four months from now.’ You think, ‘How am I going to be feeling four months from now? Am I still going to be feeling good?’ There’s so much time and it builds up the stress a lot.”

Over the 100 day lapse, players have had a chance to adjust their games by watching the tournament unfold on ESPN. We asked Montgomery if he’s made any adjustments to his strategy in order to practice for what he expects at the Main Event. He revealed, “I’ve been practicing and playing a lot of poker. No specific changes are needed. Poker is poker. It’s not going to change that much. Hopefully I can improve my strategy during the break and we’ll see what happens at the final table.”

So what advice does a highly-successful player like Montgomery have for newcomers to the game of poker? “Start small. When I started playing poker, I put $50 online and started from there. There’s no reason to go to the highest possible level you can afford and start playing there. I started playing $1 and $5 sit and gos for fun. Poker can be fun at any level. You don’t need to gamble a lot of money at it. If later on you find that you’re winning money, you can always move up.”

When Montgomery and the other eight finalists enter the Rio on November 9th, they’ll head to the Penn and Teller Theater to play out the final table. Until this point, the Main Event has been primarily conducted in the Amazon Room. Seth Palansky explains the change of venue: “We billed this as poker’s biggest night and felt it deserved its own stage setting appropriate to that. We’ve taken over the Penn and Teller Theater. We’re going to fill it with friends and family of the participants as well as the general public and hope to have a great couple of days.” The general public will be admitted free of charge on a first come, first served basis. Play begins at 10:00am local time on November 9th and 10:00pm on November 10th.

The final seating assignments for the November Nine have not yet been determined. Palansky explains how this process will work: “Once the final nine arrive at the Rio, they’ll find out where they are sitting. That is to help ensure that the process for everyone is fair.” In the meantime, each of the participants has anxiously watched the action unfold weekly on ESPN or through a site like PokerTube, which hosts many of the episodes.

For each of the nine finalists, the past 100 days has played out uniquely. Palansky works on the Public Relations side of the World Series of Poker for Harrah’s and described what the time since July has entailed: “It has been different for each of the players. Several have jobs that they went back to right away and preferred to get back to their normal lives, seeing the Main Event as being a hobby or recreation. For those guys, it’s been more status quo and that’s the way they want it. For others who are grinders and poker players, they’ve gone onto play other tournaments. It varies on where they are from and how they have taken advantage of the opportunities presented to them.”

Come get primed for the World Series of Poker Main Event final table this week on the PocketFives.com Podcast.