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ESPN and Harrah’s are trying to reignite interest in televised poker by changing the format for the Main Event. In years past, the tournament was played and filmed in July, but it reached the airwaves several months later. Those who followed poker knew who won the championship long before it aired.

This year, the Main Event will be whittled down to nine players on Monday. But the finalists will return to the Rio Nov. 9-10 to play for the title, where it will be filmed and broadcast immediately following its conclusion.

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The 2008 World Series of Poker is officially the largest and richest in the event’s 39-year history. Tournament officials just released final figures for the 55-event, 47-day poker extravaganza held annually each summer in Las Vegas. Both total player entries (58,720) and payouts ($180,676,248) reached all-time highs, as did the number of countries and territories represented by the participants (118 different nationalities).

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American flags bobbed in the sea of sunglasses and green felt at the World Series of Poker’s main event Friday. Independence Day brought fans and players sporting their country’s colors, and a few mused on whether poker is a quintessentially American game.

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It’s always an honor to give the “Shuffle Up and Deal” command at the World Series of Poker. It’s a right that is usually reserved for a past champion or a dignitary of an enormous caliber. On Sunday, which was Day 1D of the 2008 WSOP Main Event, six-time Democratic Congressman from Florida Robert Wexler spoke the traditional words. Wexler was at the Rio in Las Vegas in conjunction with the Poker Players Alliance, the leading lobbying group for the online poker industry in the United States.

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You would never know there is economic instability in this country if you judged it by participants at this year’s World Series of Poker finals, playing through its 55 events at the Rio All-Suites Hotel in Las Vegas. Every event begun so far has broken registration records.

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Former Kansas Citian Blair Hinkle made World Series of Poker history last weekend by winning a tournament gold bracelet just 11 days after his brother, Grant, won a similar sanctioned event, also at the Rio in Las Vegas.

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