The final table of the 2021 World Series of Poker has been reached. The most noticeable thing about this year’s November Nine is that only four of the players hail from within the USA’s borders.

These are George Holmes a recreational poker player who is 2nd in chips, Joshua Remitio in 4th, and the guy who was the leader on Day 7 but has now fallen back to 7^th Hye Park and Chase Bianchi who is, at the time of writing, in 8^th position.

In other years, perhaps this might not be all that remarkable, but when you remember that the US only opened its borders to international visitors last Monday some six days after this year’s GGPoker sponsored WSOP Main Event got underway, the fact that five of the final table are not American is somewhat remarkable.

Overweighted Internationals Defy Travel Restrictions

The surprisingly international November Nine is made of a pair of players from the United Kingdom, plus one each from Turkey, Argentina and Germany.

The German in the pack is Koray Aldemir who also happens to be the runaway chip leader.

The online poker site 888poker ambassador lives in Vienna, Austria, which is one of the 26 European Schengen countries European nations that benefitted from the lifting of America’s Covid enforced travel ban.

That Aldemir is in the lead is no shock.

The 31 year old student is the most accomplished player left in the hunt and has more than $12.3 million in live tournament earnings so far in his career, a figure that will swell by a minimum of $1 million as a result of the performance he has given since he first took his seat.

Aldemir claims that he first started playing poker on New Year’s Eve in 2006 before moving on to playing online poker freerolls at PokerStars as soon as he had turned 18.

East Flies West For Final Flight To Final Table

Another European player to make the Final Table is England’s Jareth East.

Just like plenty of other Europeans, he entered in to the final flight of the Main Event where he breezed through his first few days before cleaning up on the bubble from where he has sailed through to the last nine men standing.

This is not East’s first WSOP Main Event and his previous best came in 2015 where a deep run saw him pick up $29,329 for a 293^rd place finish.

Previous to this year’s WSOP, East’s biggest tournament cash was a $557,658 win in a WPTDeepStacks event played online at partypoker.

East has been joined by a fellow countryman at the final table in Jack Oliver.

The 26 year old is the youngest player at this year’s Main Event final table and is fifth in the chip stacks at this point.

Hailing from London, he has the full support of another Brit, Lewis Spencer, who didn’t clear Day 8 after busting in 20^th place.

While Lewis himself picked up a tasty cash of $241,800, his best ever live score, we know that his dad Rob wasn’t railing for him because he is currently in Bolton, England working as a professional snooker referee at the prestigious Champion of Champions event.

Two More Non Americans

Turkish 37 year old Ozgur Secilmis is another non American remaining, although he bought into the 2021 WSOP Main Event on Day 1d which began two days before the Final Flight suggesting the man from Istanbul was already in the US before the travel ban was removed.

Third in chips is our other international finalist, PokerStars Pro Alejandro Lococo.

Known as Papo MC, Lococo is a 29 year old musical artist and DJ with close to two million followers on Twitch who is obviously as competent at the felt as he is on the decks.

His residence is listed as Argentina so jetlag looks like it is proving no problem for these crushers then.

$1 Million GTD From Here

Each of the last nine are now guaranteed a pay day of at least $1 million and will reconvene today to play down to a final four before breaking again after which play will resume and the 2021 World Series of Poker Main Event champion will finally be crowned.