The World Series of Poker Main Event final table continues on, with Ryan Riess(pictured), a 23-year-old from Michigan and a former poker dealer, holding the chip lead. At the time of writing, Riess had one-third of the chips in play, 64.5 million, nearly double the second place stack of 37.9 million belonging to Jay Farber. The short stack at the table held 11.7 million with blinds of 300,000-600,000 with an ante of 75,000.

Quiet since early on has been JC Tran, the chip leader coming into the November Nine finale on Monday. Speaking on Tran’s play, longtime PocketFives member Griffin Flush_Entity Benger remarked, “Antonio just said Tran is playing ‘cold’ & I agree, but product of being completely card dead. Hasn’t been dealt one premium outside of AQ.” Train sat in third place at the time of writing at a little over 30 million.

Riess busted Michiel Brummelhuis in seventh place and we’re now six-handed. Riess also eliminated Mark Newhouse in ninth place after coming out on the winning end of a race. We’ll play down to either three players or two tonight, and WSOP officials told us the decision on when to stop will be made at some point during the evening.

Responding to an interview with Riess that appeared on ESPN2’s broadcast of the finale on Monday night, PokerNews’ Rich Ryan commented, “@RyanRiess1 is getting flack for saying he is going to win because he’s the best player at the table? What is he supposed to say?” Riess is a former poker dealer and the youngest player at the Main Event final table.

In other news, I wonder if the ratings for the WSOP Main Event just skyrocketed with the conclusion of the Bears/Packers game over on the “flagship” ESPN.

Can Riess keep the momentum going and build his chip stack? Let us know by commenting here!

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