Scoring the PokerNews Staff Predictions for the 2014 WSOP Main Event Final Table

November 20, 2014

Prior to the 2014 World Series of Poker Main Event final table, PokerNews staff and contributors came together to predict the final table. Fourteen people were polled on nine different questions, and you can read all of the predictions by clicking here. Now it's time to see how everyone did.

Before we get to the results, here's a list of the people that participated in the predictions:

• Donnie Peters, Editor-in-Chief
• Brett Collson, Managing Editor
• Sarah Grant, Producer
• Giovanni Angioni, European Editor
• Frank Op de Woerd, NL PokerNews Editor
• Matthew Pitt, UK PokerNews Editor
• Chad Holloway, Senior Editor
• Martin Harris, Strategy Editor
• Pamela Maldonado, Social Media Manager
• Rich Ryan, Podcast Producer
• Jason Glatzer, Staff Writer
• Remko Rinkema, Contributor
• Aaron Hendrix, Contributor
• Mo Nuwwarah, Contributor

Five of the nine questions are up for scoring, so let's see how things turned out.

Who will be the first player eliminated and why?

Out of all of the 14 staff members and contributors who gave predictions, only Nuwwarah correctly selected the first player to bust with Mark Newhouse. Fellow contributor Hendrix was close, but went the other way with his selection, stating "I want to say Newhouse for the irony, but I'll go with [Andoni] Larrabe."

Who will win?

The team did a bit better with this question, but not by much as only three of the 14 participants correctly picked Martin Jacobson to earn the title. Those three were Grant, Harris, and Hendrix. Staff writer Glatzer was weighing his decision between Jacobson and Newhouse, but ultimately selected Newhouse, citing his stack size to begin the final table versus the Swede's.

What will be the finishing order for the final table?

For the results of the finishing order, we scored each of our participants based on points earned for correctly selected finishing positions. Picking the winner correctly was worth nine points. Picking second place correctly was worth eight points. Third place was worth seven points, and so on.

Both Glatzer and Hendrix earned 17 points each from their selections, but we'll give the nod to Glatzer as he selected three correct finishing positions to Hendrix's two.

How many hands will it take to complete the final table?

With 328 hands played at the final table, Grant was the closest with a guess of 321. She narrowly edged out Collson with her "Price Is Right-style" guess of just one more than Collson's 320. Glatzer also scored close, but his guess was over by 12.

How many hands of heads-up play will there be?

Lots of close calls in this one, but Grant nailed it again, following up her close guess of the total amounts of hands with another win here. She guessed 36 heads-up hands, and that was only one more that the 35 that were actually played between Jacobson and Stephensen. Hendrix and Glatzer were also very close.

Overall Conclusion

So who wins the overall predictions contest? We have to give the win to Grant, as she was the winner in three of the five rated questions. Grant correctly picked Jacobson as the winner, and then she provided the closest guess to the amount of total hands at the final table and the amount of heads-up hands. If we were awarding the top three, we'd score Hendrix in second with one win and two seconds, then Glatzer in third with one win and one third.

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