A macabre bunch our readers have turned out to be, with more than one person submitting this question. Still, it piqued our interest, so we decided to get the official answer.
There was nothing about fatalities or the consequences thereof in the World Series of Poker official Tournament Rules, so that was no help. Hence, we put in a call to Harrah's and spoke with the very helpful WSOP Communications Director Seth Palansky, who told us the following.
First off, each of the "November Nine" has already earned $1.26 million by making it to the final table, so that would go to the family of the deceased player, or whomever the beneficiary of their will was (in fact, there've been some media accounts indicating that checks have already been cut and presented to some, or all, of the finalists). At the final table, a deceased player's chips would simply remain in play until they ran out from the antes and blinds (as was the case when an absent Stu Ungar came ninth in the 1990 WSOP, after a cocaine overdose rendered him unable to play the final table). With the blinds picking up at a regal 120,000/140,000 when play resumes, that would eat away at an unplayed chip stack pretty quickly. However, one of the large stacks could fade it for a long time (the leader has 58,930,000, a third of all the chips).
With a $50,000 difference between ninth and eighth place, Palansky conjectured that the other players might opt not to play a single hand until the absent player's chips had been totally eroded (which wouldn't make for very good TV). But our poker sources are adamant that the great players in the final nine would contest those free chips being anteed off, which could lead to an amazing story of the "dead" seat finishing much higher than ninth. Mind boggling.
While discussing this, we took the opportunity to ask about the new policy of postponing the final table and were told that they attributed the 53% increase in viewership to the decision to do it last year, so the policy was repeated. The 2009 final table will take place not in a ballroom, but in the Penn & Teller Theater at the Rio, and with seven Americans in the mix, they're expecting a huge turnout of family and supporters (up to 250 per player), which the organizers anticipate will result in an atmosphere more like a typical sporting event than a casino tournament, with big sections of fans wearing team colors and rooting for their player.
