These are the days that test the resolve of sports fans. The NBA's season-long drama has run its course, golf's best majors are over and football is still two months away.
Left with the numbness that arrives each summer in the middle of baseball season, sports fans should not feel hopeless. Finally, after too many years of snoozing through hours upon hours of Peter Gammons and Harold Reynolds on "Baseball Tonight," there is hope - something to pull us through at least until the first day of NFL training camp.
For this we look to the most unlikely of arenas: Binions Casino in Las Vegas, home of the 2004 World Series of Poker. In the hotbed of Americana, the world's best poker players provide us with all the drama of a TNT original movie, and ESPN schedules just as many reruns.
With names and personalities like Chris Moneymaker, Phil Ivey, Johnny Chan and Sam Farha, the state of tournament poker is strong. This is not a developmental league like the NBA is becoming. Either you're ready to play or you're out at least your $10,000 buy in. And thanks to ESPN's condensed coverage, which began July 6, only the action-packed hands and intriguing tables are shown.
Rather than spending four hours watching another Braves vs. Mets series on TBS, neutral fans can fulfill their competitive viewing quotas in half hour or hour segments without the risk of rain delays. In that time, you are apt to see the full range of human emotion and potential fistfights coupled with the brilliant and witty narration of Norman Chad.
Even better, everyone who watches the World Series of Poker can relate - even if just a little bit - to one of the professionals. That certainly cannot be said for every sport. These guys are not superior athletes - they sit in a second-hand smoke palace for a living and play cards.
The players fit every demographic. Annie Duke gives women hope that one day they might drop their kids off at the daycare center and head to work - at a casino. Dan Harrington, a former World Series champion, shows old men that their competitive juices need not be left solely on the golf course. Phil Ivey and Dutch Boyd appeal to our generation and inhibit us to waste our menial summertime salaries at makeshift poker arenas in hopes of sharing in their dream. Basically, if you can't find someone to cheer for, you're just not trying hard enough.
And, with Victor Conte, the mastermind of the BALCO steroid controversy, poised to squeal on every professional athlete he ever helped make a cheater, poker might soon be one of the only sports in which all the players are "clean." Some of the players might be on drugs, but that won't help them beat a full house. Nope, they might drink scotch over Gatorade, but when it comes down to it, the winner of the million-dollar jackpot has to do it on his or her own skill, wit, calm and luck.
What makes the World Series of Poker even more beautiful is that it is a game that is all about the money. You won't have to listen to the players say they are playing for the love of the game. Yea, Texas Hold 'Em is a fun game, but when millions of dollars are on the line, amusement is not the central goal. They entered the tournament with their own money and are playing to win a whole lot more.
There is no predictable script in this tournament either. Last year, Moneymaker, a pudgy accountant from Tennessee shocked the poker world when he bought into the tournament off the money he won playing an online poker tournament and took down some of the world's greatest players en route to victory. He took a $40 entry fee from the online tournament and turned it into a multi-million dollar paycheck last summer.
These are the summer months. If you're not wild about the sixth edition of Lance Armstrong's comeback tour and if you've had it with the Yankees vs. Red Sox, take a well-deserved break from those games and turn your attention to Vegas.
There is very little stress involved watching people throw away their own money. None of the competitors are relying on performance-enhancing drugs to win or trying to tell us it's not about the cash. For the next few weeks, enjoy a real life spectacle before football season brings us back into our beloved fantasy world.
