All in
Like seemingly everyone else, I've picked up the poker bug, although not as intently as many of my friends -- I haven't read any books, still don't much about strategy, etc. And I'm definitely not competing in the World Series, like a couple of quizbowl colleagues (both eliminated in Day 1C).

However, it has been interesting following along with the action, something I would never had considered even last year. We have one guy covering the action on our site, and Fox Sports has some good stuff as well. But I've discovered Card Player has some great up-to-the-minute information on the action -- especially the big names who have been knocked out. (As I write this, Chris Moneymaker has been knocked out -- just hours after watching the 2003 WSOP final table on ESPN Classic.)

Which gets me to the most compelling part of this year's World Series Main Event, is that the 5,619 competitors are truly a mixed bag of personalities. There are tons of guys like Nate and Fred hoping to follow the Moneymaker or Greg Raymer path from anonymity to poker stardom. They're sitting next to ]and lasting longer than legends of the game (some of whom were famous even before there was poker on TV 24/7).

And while you have the "famous for playing poker" people and the "want to be famous for playing poker" folks, there are the "we're famous and we're playing poker" celebrities. Looking over the photo wires at work and keeping up with the WSOP logs, among the celebrities competing include Jennifer Tilly (who won a WSOP bracelet), James Woods, Mimi Rogers, Tobey Maguire, Brad Garrett, Wil Wheaton, Shannon Sharpe, Shannon Elizabeth and Anna Benson. It's a bit jarring for me to see this because I've also seen a bunch of them on Bravo's Celebrity Poker Showdown and all of a sudden they're in the Main Event. It seems akin to the Rock-n-Jock or NBA Celebrity league players all of a sudden suiting up for the Pistons, or the old Battle of the Network Stars competitors heading to the Olympics. (Although I guess Gabe Kaplan did move from BotNS to the WSOP, but that's another story.)

Finally, while it really isn't strange that there's a ton of coverage on the World Series these days, what is odd is that the stuff I'm keeping up with right now won't be on ESPN until later this fall. (Their 2005 WSOP coverage does start next week with some satellite tournaments earlier this year.) In a way, it's like Jeopardy! or WWTBAM? in that the winners will have known for months that they've won all this money -- except that now we all have access to when you actually win, unlike the vow of secrecy that surrounds the game shows. And despite it all, the ratings for those shows (especially the Main Event ones) will probably be through the roof -- very strange for something for which we'll have known the results for months.

It's not like ESPN Classic where we want to relive an old game we've seen before, this stuff will be new for lots of people -- but with months of lag time. I would say that it's the antithesis of today's live sports culture especially in Bristol, but then again, the Olympics still often works on the tape-delay system for many events (often to squeeze in profile pieces -- like ESPN does for the WSOP) and grabs big ratings. I wonder if whoever gets to the air the NHL after the lockout will try a similar system of extended time-shifting to increase ratings?