2011 November Nine: The unknown pro Matt Giannetti

Each year the final table of the World Series of Poker brings together an interesting mix of poker players, and 2011 is no different in that regard. With three top US Poker Pros; four, young, talented, international players that are looking to make a name for themselves; and two older, yet seemingly more inexperienced, players rounding out the November Nine.

In this series I’ll take a look at each of the November Nine and weight their chances of winning the WSOP Main Event based on their play, their chip count, and their seating assignment. Next up on the list is Matt Giannetti.

But first here is a look at the chip counts and seating assignments for each player:

• Seat 1: Matt Giannetti from Las Vegas, NV - 24,750,000 chips
• Seat 2: Badih Bounahra from Belize City, Belize - 19,700,000 chips
• Seat 3: Eoghan O’Dea from Dublin, Ireland - 33,925,000 chips
• Seat 4: Phil Collins from Las Vegas, NV - 23,875,000 chips
• Seat 5: Anton Makiievskyi from Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine - 13,825,000 chips
• Seat 6: Sam Holden from Sussex, UK - 12,375,000 chips
• Seat 7: Pius Heinz from Cologne, Germany - 16,425,000 chips
• Seat 8: Ben Lamb from Tulsa, OK - 20,875,000 chips
• Seat 9: Martin Staszko from Trinec, Czech Republic - 40,175,000 chips

Matt Giannetti is well-known in the Las Vegas poker circles where he plies his trade at the high-stakes poker tables around town, but despite a pretty impressive tournament career, Giannetti hasn’t been able to make that deep run in a televised event, and is therefore fairly unknown to the general poker world.

Coming into the 2011 WSOP Main Event Giannetti had about $500k in career tournament earnings including 10 WSOP cashes, 2 WSOP final tables, 5 WPT cashes, and 2 EPT cashes, but had never cashed for more than five-figures.

During his time at the Main Event featured table Giannetti proved to be equally adept when he had chips and when he was short-stacked, and managed to rocket up to the #3 spot after coming into 10-handed play in dead last, so he seems to have all the skills a poker player needs to win the Main Event.

As a high-stakes poker pro, look for Giannetti to be one of the players who makes the most out of the four-month break, studying up on his opponents and devising a strategy that will alter his own play just enough to take advantage of what his opponents will see, and think, of him based on the ESPN coverage. I’d also expect Giannetti to work with some of the best tournament players out there, and as a solid player already will be able to bounce ideas back and forth -unlike a player like Martin Staszko who would be basically “coached”.

Overall, his position is pretty neutral at the table, but the loss of Badih Bounahra would put Giannetti in a very tough situation with O’Dea and Collins on his immediate left, and Ben Lamb on the button when Giannetti is in the Big Blind.

I’d put Giannetti’s chances of winning the WSOP Main Event at around 6-to-1 -which is right around where the bookmakers have set the line.