By this time tomorrow night, everyone within the poker world may be talking concerning the November Nine, while people still on the Rio might be more inclined to speak about nine ball.

It's bobbing up on 8:30pm in Las Vegas, and the semblance is beginning to crack. With 14 players now left usually Event, there are precious few eliminations left before the tip of the summer. Five more people will leave here devastated, the remainder will start their long watch for November.

It doesn't take a keen eye to peer in the course of the drapes and realize that it is all very Wizard of Oz-y at the other side. This has all felt very real, and for those within the November Nine, it is going to be real, For everyone else, the hallucination will begin to shimmer within the carpet after which disappear entirely.

The most literal example of that is just down the hall where all of the poker tables within the Brasilia and Pavilion rooms was replaced with pool tables. Before the money-winners here have found a correct place hide all their loot, the places they sat are disappearing before their eyes. The WSOP only has a necessity for 14 chairs, and every passing hour spotlights the ever-dwindling necessity.

Watching the pool tables get brought in on forklifts is a stark reminder for anyone left here on the Rio. We--players, people, writers, and roustabouts--are easily replaced. What used to be a poker city is popping into something else entirely. When the pool players on the 2016 BCAPL National Championships occur here on Wednesday, there won't also be an echo of chip shuffling. The entire noises could be different. The entire lights could be different. The queens and kings of poker stardom could be gone and those with cue sticks will run this nation on their lonesome. The article that's been an important will simply disappear as though it had never existed.

For an event of such import, it is--like most things in poker--temporary. It's sad, but it's life. We're guaranteed nothing, not a tomorrow, not a chip stack, not an afternoon when fate chooses to be kind. We all know this, because we've got watched four people bust out within the last hour, and we all know it since the eliminations won't stop for hours.

It could be, for those who give it some thought too long, slightly depressing to peer this event again dismantled. Then again, just as sure as they tear it down, they'll be planning to construct it again in 2017. Within the meantime, rack'em up. There's a pool tourney to play.

Brad Willis is the PokerStars Head of Blogging. Follow him on Twitter: @BradWillis.

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