Since there’s a long, boring wait until the November Nine meets to decide the 2011 WSOP Man Event champion, it’s worth taking some time to debate who will win the title. The first thing that sticks out about this year’s competition is how balanced the chip counts are heading into the final table (at least compared to previous years).
Martin Staszko leads all players with over 40 million chips, while Sam Holden is the short stack with just over 12 million. Now this might seem like quite a disparity, but considering how Jonathan Duhamel had 66 million chips compared to ninth place Jason Sentl’s 7.6 million chips in 2010, the 2011 gap isn’t so big. In any case, it looks like everybody has a shot at this point.
Getting into more details about the individual who will win, Bodog places 2011 November odds as follows:
Martin Staszko (40,175,000) – 4/1
Eoghan O’dea (33,925,000) – 9/2
Matt Giannetti (24,750,000) – 13/2
Phil Collins (23,875,000) – 13/2
Ben Lamb (20,875,000) – 7/1
Badih Bounahra (19,700,000) – 9/1
Pius Heinz (16,425,000) – 11/1
Anton Makievskyi (13,825,000) – 12/1
Samuel Holden (12,375,000) – 16/1
Basically, the odds don’t really predict much because they fall in line with each person’s chip count. However, you do have to consider that Staszko figures to hold the best chance since he’s got the chip lead, and has been a full-time pro for around a year now. Likewise, O’Dea is also a strong bet to win it all because he has plenty of live tournament experience, and isn’t far behind Staszko in chips.
The one wild card definitely has to be Ben Lamb because he’s running hotter than anybody in this year’s WSOP. In fact, Lamb is in the driver’s seat to win the 2011 WSOP Player of the Year, and has the most live tournament experience too. Both Phil Collins and Matt Giannetti are certainly strong bets to make a title run because they’ve won millions of dollars online, and are in the middle of the pack in terms of chips.
But even with all of this being said, it’s going to be extremely tough to pick a clear favorite from this group.