01 Nov 08

November Nine: Dennis Phillips

Each day, we will present you a November Nine in detail. Today: Dennis Phillips – On November 9th, the US American will enter the race as the chip leader for the most important trophy in poker, the bracelet of the WSOP Main Event.

With 53 years, Phillips is also the oldest player at the final table. Nevertheless, he considers himself to be the most inexperienced person amongst the November Nine, at least when it comes to poker. Since his early childhood, Phillips was already in touch with card games in general. "My family played everything, from bridge to canasta." Later on, he mainly played blackjack in the casino, and only started playing poker about four years ago.

The first cash game rounds were followed by a few tournament appearances in the WSOP Circuit, in which he reached two final tables. The WSOP Main Event was his first appearance on the big stage of the international poker sport. Phillips was able to qualify via a $200 satellite in the Harrahs Casino St. Louis. Thus, his ROI should already add up. About $900,000 were paid out to each of the nine finalists. The eventual winner will receive over nine million dollars overall.

In the past months, Phillips gathered some further live experience in the High Roller Event of the EPT London amongst others. Hopefully, it won't be a bad omen that he dropped out there as the bubble boy of all things. His mentor is apparently Roy Winston who prepares him for the finale.

However, Phil Gordon has also offered some coaching hours to the socially engaged Phillips, in return for his donation of one percent of his winnings for "Put a Bad Beat on Cancer". Furthermore, Phillips auctioned off an advertisement space on the sleeve of his top on eBay for charity purposes. A reason for this is his brother, who suffers from multiple sclerosis.

When asked if he would give up his job as a customer consultant for a forwarder company in case he would win, Phillips replied that he couldn't even do so, simply for the reason that he already has a few side bets going with people who believe that he will do just that. Besides, he doesn't see himself as a future poker pro either. "I still regard poker as a hobby. The final table hasn't changed anything for me either in this matter."

If Phillips wins, he would certainly be one of the most acceptable finalists for everybody involved. No scandals, down-to-earth, friendly and almost shy, the chip leader – who grew up on a farm – is well-liked by everybody. Furthermore, he really turned up the heat on the final table with still ten players left, when he increased his stack by almost 5 million chips to 26,295,000 before the final table bubble burst with the elimination of Dean Hamrick on rank 10, and the players entered their months-long break.

Origin of photo material: WSOP