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We’re still at 9 players going into the second break in the November Nine.  Pius Heinz has be far been the biggest surprise in my opinion.  He has skyrocketed to the chip leadership with 49.95 Million in chips.

Heinz now your chip leader.

My pick, Eoghan O’Dea has plummeted and is the 3rd short stack with 13.025 Million.  Ben Lamb is currently in 4th. Lamb has been surprising and hasn’t really been that active thus far.

The commentary has been fairly solid, but the surprise (not to me) has been Phil Hellmuth.  Hellmuth has had some unique insight during the final table and actually showed more insight than Esfandiari.  Remember folks, Phil is a former champion  and does have 11 bracelets.  (Probably should have been 13 or more.)

Maybe Phil should do this more often.

One interesting point brought up by Norman Chad earlier in the broadcast is that there is only 1 player wearing sunglasses at the table this year.  This is a significant drop over the 3 to 5 a year since 2003.  Antonio felt that a player wearing sunglasses is more of a scared player.

Norm showing how silly sunglasses at the table really are.

Sam Holden is currently in 8th place with 11 Million and Anton Makiievski is the current short stack.  In the last hour, the action has really began to loosen up and I think in the next level we will see up to two players knocked out.

Right now, most of my prop bets are looking to be in danger as my guy is sitting with just 13 Million.  Of course, one double-up puts O’Dea (and my bets) back into play.

Can Heinz continue to stay on top or will he plummet like Michael Mizrachi did last year after he got the chip lead?  Will Ben Lamb step up and mix it up some more?  Stay tuned as we continue to bring you updates from the 2011 WSOP November Nine.