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AP Photo/Laura RauchThe final nine players are back in Las Vegas for the WSOP final table on Saturday.

Today is one of my favorite days of the year: the final table of the WSOP main event. After four months of talking nonstop about these nine players, it's time for them to play it out and see which one will walk away with the $8.9 million first-place prize.

Action will begin at the Rio at 3 p.m. ET, and we can expect a much quicker final table compared to 2009, which left me blogging until 9 a.m. Sunday. The 10-handed bubble lasted nearly six hours in July, and as tournament director Jack Effel said that day, every hand played then was one fewer hand we'd play in November.

To put things into perspective, the blinds will start at 250,000/500,000 with a 50,000 ante. Last year we entered heads-up play at 500,000/1,000,000 with a 150,000 ante. If we reached heads-up play at the same point in the blind structure this year, it would mean that the night would end at 10:30 p.m. ET. I don't expect play to end that early, but I do expect that those attending the final table in person will have plenty of time to go out in Vegas after play has finished for the night and there are two players left standing.

Click the chat below to check out all the action from the final table and interact with me the entire time as the field of nine shrinks one by one in Las Vegas. For more coverage throughout the day, follow @ESPN_Poker on Twitter.