Down Time Dwindling

Tonight kicks off ESPN's coverage of the 2009 World Series of Poker (presented by Jack Link's Beef Jerky!).

Wait, what? Didn't the WSOP just end? Are they really going to make me re-live it so soon?

At a certain level I'm kidding. The seven weeks of the WSOP are a grind by any definition but all the members of the media that gripe about it (including me) are there because we love to be there and want to be there. That said, nobody complains when the whole shebang is over. The last thing we want to do is come home, unwind for a week and then turn on the television and re-live the whole thing.

But that's where we are. The first episode focuses on the $40K 40th-anniversary tournament that was won by Vitaliy Lunkin. I suppose I'll watch it if I'm home... but I'm not sure. After having watched countless poker tournaments in person over the last year, I don't find televised poker tournaments to be as compelling as I used to. Judging by the evolution of poker television, I don't think I'm alone in that regard.

My blase attitude about televised poker won't stop me from heading off on the tournament trail in a few weeks, but it won't be to Eastern Europe. Speaking Russian and having previously lived in Moscow are less compelling reasons to send a person to Kiev than they are to send that person to Moscow. With EPT Moscow now moved to Kiev I've been re-assigned to cover APT Macau and APPT Macau, a thirteen-day jaunt from August 19 to August 31. Doc Chako, get yah ass to Mahs!

Things after Macau are fuzzy, as usual. The most likely scenario has me heading to another haven of dark-haired beauties, Cyprus, on September 4. That would be an eleven-day trip for a WPT with a return to Vegas on September 14.

Three more weeks of decompression are what I get before the ball starts rolling again.