Another Mucking Blog

Poker people mark your calendars, itineraries, student planners, make a sticky note or write it on the back of your hand because ESPN coverage of the 2009 WSOP is about to kick off! Starting Tuesday, July 28th (at 8 PM ET) the days of WSOP reruns are over (and not a moment too soon cause I swear if I saw Chris Moneymaker knock Johnny Chan out one more time I was going to pick up Johnny’s stupid orange and throw it at someone).

ESPN is going all-in with this WSOP as they promised us a spectacle beyond belief. With 40 cameras used to cover this years WSOP (NBC used 35 to cover Super bowl XLIII) which is airing in 25 countries on 5 continents over span of 16 weeks, not only will we get a front row view to the run up of the Main Event final table (Go Phil!) but we’ll experience the the Special 40th Annual $40,000 No Limit Hold’em event where the prize pool is up to $7.7 Million. Can you imagine if this were a re-buy event? And we will move beyond the railing at the Rio (with out a buy-in) to watch previous Main Event winners duke it out in the Champions Invitational, and witness celebrities like Matt Damon show off their poker faces in the Ante Up for Africa Celebrity – Charity Event . Not to mention the 24 hour coverage of the Main Event ESPN promised us. But the question remains, who will take home the gold bracelets? Will it be a dark horse, a seasoned veteran, a rising Internet star, or maybe some rich fool who thinks lady luck likes to flirt with him? And if you all ready know (cause your part of that select group of people who likes to read the news) then just enjoy the sweet editing and camera work the boys over at ESPN cooked up for us because hey, it took them long enough!

So set your TIVO’s or rummage up one of those VCR things and record each Tuesday night cause we are guaranteed two episodes a week with commentary by veteran announcer (yet novice poker player) Lon McEachern, who makes the WSOP sound like the greatest thing since bread and butter, and the sarcastic Norman Chad (I can’t wait to hear him bash on the Poker Brat this year, especially his over extravagant entrance as Cesar). Look for the featured table with the likes of Phil “The Tiger Woods of Poker” Ivey, Phil “Poker Brat” Hellmuth, Scotty “the Train” Nguyen, Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier, and many more names that have come to dominate this game…give me time, I’ll be there soon…one day I hope!

-Debbie Deuce Dallas

The ESPN 2009 WSOP SCHEDULE