I'm not even really talking about the World Series, since there's a huge amount of history and tradition there, and it obviously seems to be working for them.

It's just that when you see reports about the major tournament at the Taj Mahal, Bellagio, Foxwoods, et al, the final event is inevitably No-Limit Hold `Em with a $10,000 buy-in. Tourney after tourney is the same thing, so that this now appears to be the default fee for the foreseeable future.

I wanted to know if any tournament ever tried a bigger entry fee for a major tournament, say $25,000? Is there some reason why $10K is considered the absolute upper barrier, or is this just stagnant tradition left over from 1970? Any thoughts on the subject?

The roster for this $10,000 entry fee event is impressive: WSOP defending champ Chris Moneymaker, two-time WSOP winners Doyle Brunson and Johnny Chan, poker bad boy Phil Hellmuth, and top pros Howard Lederer and Phil Ivey.

Fox Sports Net will utilize 21 cameras, 21 tape machines, 12 instant replay machines, 3 continuous running editing computers and a special event NFL broadcast truck.

The network says it will also feature a first-of-its-kind "Rabbit Hunting" camera, "In the event of a fold, viewers get to see the cards the dealer never flipped over and only they will know if folding was a good idea or if it cost the player thousands of dollars."

I'm not sure how this is different from the hole card cameras used by the Travel Channel and ESPN, but I guess I'll have to wait and see.

The event is set to air from 12:30pm to 6:30pm local time. Check your local listings because many affiliates will not show the entire event. My affiliate will air the last 4 hours. There is also a scheduled replay of the final at 8pm.

Nothing says "Happy Thanksgiving" like 6 hours of poker!

We'll start at the beginning with the granddaddy of poker, the World Series of Poker at Binion's Horseshow casino. ESPN has shown the final table for more than a decade. It was packaged into a single show, and it drew a small audience.

Then came the World Poker Tour on the Travel Channel. It was our first chance to see the hole cards as the game was played. It revolutionized the way we watched poker on TV, and America responded. It quickly became the highest rated show in the small cable network's history.

ESPN quickly responded, giving us the most-highly produced WSOP event ever. We saw the tournament from beginning to end. We saw hole cards at the feature table. We learned about the players away from the table. We met the masters and the dead money. And we watched an online amateur win it all.

The rest of the television world is taking notice. Starting December 2nd, Bravo will air Celebrity Poker Showdown. The lineup for game 1 is Ben Affleck, Don Cheadle, Willie Garson (gay friend on Sex in the City), Emily Proctor (hot blonde on CSI: Miami), and David Schwimmer. My money is on Don Cheadle... he was in Ocean's Eleven so I think that makes him the favorite.

On December 9th, you'll see Timothy Busfield, Allison Janney, Richard Schiff, Martin Sheen, and John Spencer, all from NBC's West Wing. Bravo and NBC are television partners (maybe GE owns both, I'm not sure). I predict this series will be a huge success.

NBC is certainly taking note, and will gamble on a poker special of its own. Air date? Try Super Bowl Sunday! The peacock network believes the non-Super Bowl watchers might stop by for a little poker action. I'll have to set my VCR... I'll be watching the big game. (UPDATE: Commenter Liquid Swords is right, the special will air from 4pm-6pm before the start of the big game. Now I can watch both.)

The Game Show Network doesn't have poker, but it will have its own world series of cards. The World Series of Blackjack. As a blackjack fan myself, I'll certainly give this a try. However, I suspect it will lack the drama of the WSOP because blackjack doesn't have the same player-to-player interaction.

Soon, there will be a cable network for gambling. The Casino and Gaming Television Network will offer a show of poker advice, tours of casinos and more. Its biggest roadblock will be finding advertisers. Family groups have already begun their campaigns against the network.

In the end, the big winner will be you and me, the poker players. I say the more poker on TV the better. It's helped lead to an explosion of poker online, and the more players, the more fish. And I'm sure we can all agree that's a good thing.

I've been beating the 15/30 at PartyPoker for a few months (about 20,000 raked hands during that time period). I'd been doing very well -- playing tight, but aggressive [Boy, you didn't watch Rounders for nothing, did you? -- ed]. It's been lucrative -- I've built quite a bankroll there.

Then, about a month ago, all that changed. I'm just not a winner. Yeah, I have winning sessions, but I keep a close watch on my results. While it's still statistically possible that I'm just on a bad streak of cards, it looks like playing the 15/30 at Party isn't profitable for me anymore. In fact, my expected value seems to have dipped from more than 2BBs/hour to a slightly negative hourly reate.

How was I doing so well? Here's what I've come up with:
1. I was playing better. For some reason, I think I've started calling more. While check/calling has its merits against the occasional lone aggressive bettor when the pot is big, it's a skill that ought be used selectively. And by selectively, I mean rarely. But on the whole, I don't think that this is why my expected value has turned downhill.
2. Not focusing as much. When you do anything alot, the average focus that you bring to the game declines. I think some of that happened to me. I lost some focus sometimes, and that stuff adds up. In mid-limits poker with decent opponents, there's not much room for error. Poker is a negative-sum game, after all.
3. Tougher games. I think this is the reason. I moved up to the 15/30 right as the WSOP was getting televised on ESPN, and the games were pretty easy for awhile. Granted, I didn't see many idiots playing in the 15/30, but I think many people read the book, played a little, and then thought they were ready for some middle limits play. Sorry folks, it's a little harder than that.

So, now that the bad players have given up, the games have gone back to normal. I still think the 15/30 at Party is beatable (especially at certain times), but it takes more concentration than I want to give to it. After all, I like to read the news and talk on the phone while I play.

So, where do I go down to? I really don't know. I was playing the 5/10 at Party before I jumped to the 15/30. So I suspect I'm back to the 5/10. But it's gonna be rough making so much less than I did when I played 15/30. Oh well.

If you have any other thoughts on why the 15/30 might've gotten harder for me, let me know. Also, if anyone else has found that their online games have gotten considerably harder in the past month or two, let me know. ricegrad@hotpop.com Thanks!

A little background: I was playing $6/$12 with some good guys, a few crazy friends with the unfortunate habit of talking to each other in a foreign language during hands, one semi-prick who would go on for hours about perceived misplays, even when he wasn't in the hand, and a guy downing scotch who almost instigated a fistfight. In short, a fun table.

I spent a few hours running bad, but managed to take advantage of a few of the newer players to eventually get a stack above water. Our table broke after a while (the Borgata — wrongly, I feel — doesn't have a "must-move" system), so I cashed in half my chips and took an open seat in one of the other $6/$12 games. I figured I'd play for a little while longer, as I was having such a good time.

Well, that good time didn't last too long. Kings cracked twice, opponents hitting their lower kickers, and an assortment of excuse-less poor play wiped me out like a hole in the gas tank. It was a rare hand that wasn't raised or three/four-bet preflop, so even the unmemorable hands were costing me. Into the wallet for some more of those previously cashed-in chips, then into the wallet again, and then one final time.

So I've just gotten crushed once more in late position, when that third spade did, in fact, give my opponent the flush. One missed flop later and I'm looking at one final green chip, $25. I'm asking myself why I didn't just leave when the table broke, all those losing hours ago. I could have had a fine meal, headed over for a look at the ocean...so many opportunities, and all I had to do was leave. I decided that I'd give myself this final go around the table to see if I could pick up pocket aces or something, and if not, I'd take that lonely green chip and get myself some dinner. I threw away pocket 2's in middle position only to see a deuce fall on the turn. I threw away a bunch of crap. And then I was under the gun.

This was it: if I didn't find something right now then I definitely wasn't going to waste my money on the blinds. I mean, $25 is still $25, and I was hungry. So I looked down to find...the 9 & 5 of hearts. Ugh. But...well...it's my last hand, so why not try limping in and hope I get lucky? $19 is $19, too. So I limp, only to watch in horror as it's raised and reraised behind me. Figuring that my hand isn't really in danger against the premium hands I call the bet, and it's, of course, capped by the original raiser. And folks, one lonely white chip is not even $1.

The first thing I notice about the flop: at least there's one heart. The next: hey, I have an open-ended straight draw! Then..waitaminnit...I have two open-ended straight draws which means...I have a straight! Yep, the flop was 678. I throw in that last white chip and watch as the board pairs the six and then the seven...but no worries, I win the hand (pocket queens takes the side pot) and quintuple up.

I decide to play another round and immediately get pocket Kings in the big blind. It's capped again, but this time there's nobody playing crap straights and I take down another monster. In two hands I've gone from looking for my coat to almost $300, and it doesn't stop there. Not long after I pick up pocket tens and decide to only smooth-call the raise. I don't hit trips on the flop...I hit quads. It's checked around, and on the turn a King falls. The other two players each hit their King and the original raiser (who hit his King) bumps it up before me and ends up paying off for a raise on the river. It was beautiful.

With that and another small win or two, I realized I had won back everything that I had lost during those nightmare hours, and even a few measly chips more — enough for breakfast, at least. And while I've had bigger wins than the $10 I eventually finished ahead, I can't think of too many better ones.

Made my way to Foxwoods with a non-poker-playing friend Saturday night. Went to check out the World Poker Finals action, thinking I might play a small-limit game for a half-hour so my friend could watch... well, it's probably a combination of the tourney and Mohegan Sun closing their room, but I've never seen a room so packed in my life. We're talking lists of upwards of 30 people for the low-limit games...sheer insanity. I talked to somebody later who busted out of the 10:00 a.m. tourney at around 11:15, and then had to wait four hours to get into a live game. I did see Men "The Master" Nguyen, though.

Anyway, no great lessons to be learned, so I thought I'd run through a few amusing notes from my recent play.

• What Would You Do? $10-$20 game, reasonably well-behaved. I'm in early position, but not involved in the hand. Under-the-gun calls, an aggressive, near-crazy guy in middle/late position raises. The two blinds fold and the raiser, not having seen the UTG caller, thinks he won and turns over his hand: pocket 4s. The caller, an older, salty guy, says Hey, I'm still in the hand, and three-bets. The now-embarrassed-and-exposed raiser calls, and the flop comes something like 378 rainbow. The salty guy bets and says, laughing, "Look, I have you beat, just fold." But really, if you think about it, that isn't a bad flop for pocket 4's (and what if the other guy had AK or was just pulling a well-justified move). Looking deeply pained, he calls. Anyway, the turn and river come (maybe a Jack and a six), the first guy keeps betting, the embarrassed guy keeps calling, and at the end the first guy turns over...pocket 5s! The (might-as-well-be) nuts! We laughed for a good two minutes straight. with lots of "I put you on that hand" comments.
• I'm sure you've heard this conversation before, somebody saying how he'd never play online because it's rigged and too easy to cheat and stuff like that. It's a reasonable opinion and I can't blame someone for feeling that way. Except that in this particular case the player in question was in the middle of a hand where he called in early position (and a subsequent raise) with Q3...only to see the flop come down QQ3! My pointing out that if he had seen that particular hand online he would have been sure cheating was involved was met with an icy glance.
• Nothing to do with recent play, but if you've ever been curious about what it's like from the other side of the table, be sure to check out the always interesting, enlightening , and hilarious Table Tango on PokerWorks, the first-hand report from a dealer at the Bellagio. And speaking of vicarious living, though I no longer play online for real money, I still find myself drawn to the $100-$200 games on PokerStars. If nothing else, it makes me feel a lot better about my bad beats when I see somebody else get run down the river to lose what's pretty much my yearly gambling budget on one hand.

Hand #2

It's just the second hand and I'm looking at cowboys. It's early, so I decide to take a chance and leave as many people as possible in the pot. I'm in an early position and I just call the big blind. Six players are in the hand.
The flop brings Ac-Kh-10d. The bad news, a possible straight draw. The good news, no flush draw. The best news, I flopped a set of Kings! The guy in front of me bets 65 (the pot), and I call, so does a player behind me. It worries me that two other players are still in, should I have raised?
The turn is a 9 of clubs. It couldn't possibly have helped either of them. The first guy checks and I bet 260. I get one caller and the other player folds. Now I'm worried. I'm into this pot for 335 chips. If I lose this hand at this point, I'm down to 665.
The river is a 7 of clubs. It's irrelevant. If he has Q-J or A-A, I'm sitting on a loser. I know it's not A-A. I'm first to act, and I check. I'm gun shy. My poker hasn't been going to well. He checks, too. What would I have done if he forced me all-in? Glad I didn't find out, but when he shows A-Q, I wish I had bet a little more. I'm up to 1445.
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Hand #5

I'm in the big blind of 10 when I get Ks-Jh. No one raises, so I'm the hand with 6 other players. Clearly a loose table. We've already lost one player.
The flop is Kd-7s-5s. Not bad. I've got top pair with a pretty good kicker. I'm second to act and it's checked to me. I bet 70 and get two callers before a guy raises it to 420. He gets a caller then another guy goes all-in for 960. That's followed by another guy going all-in for 2040. A third guy goes all-in with 990. By the way, I folded.
The showdown is As-Js, 5h-7h and 7d-4d. Huh? First guy is on a spade flush draw. Second guy is sitting with two-pair. Third guy has the second pair and a backdoor flush draw. Guess some people just donate.
The last two cards are 9c and 6h. Two pair hold up.

By hand #7, three of the 10 players are out. A fourth is out in hand nine and a fifth in hand 12.
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Hand #41

The loose players went fast and I didn't get much action for the next 36 hands. I'm sitting in fourth place with 1340 chips, just 300 behind second place, but 3200 behind first. I'm UTG when I get Kd-Qs. The blind is still just 30 so I call. All fold until the big blind (who's in second place) raises it to 105. I throw another 75 into the pot, but I'm not sure why. Getting bored, I guess.
The flop is 4h-Qc-6s. Now I'm glad I stayed. The other guy bets 225 and I call.
The turn is a 10 of spades. He bets 675 and I suddenly realize why I shouldn't have been in this hand. He's gotta have rockets or cowboys. He's got the overpair and I'm betting top pair, just throwing money away. I fold, and I'm down to 1085.
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Hand #50

Nine hands later, and I'm in 4th place now with 1025 chips. I'm in a late position when I get Kh-Jh. I call the big blind of 40 and three players are in the pot.
The flop is 9d-7s-Qd. Since everyone checks, so do I. I easily could have been bet out of this pot, but I'm still in.
The turn is a magical card, a 10 of hearts. There's a diamond draw on the board, but I've got the nut straight. The first player bets 120, the second folds and I raise all-in. I get called, and I'm pretty excited, until he also K-J. The river is the third diamond, but neither of us were playing for that. We chop the pot, and I'm at 1045.
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Hand #61

Now I'm down to 985 and I'm getting antsy. That's when a pair of beautiful ladies show up in my pocket. I'm UTG and I raise the big blind of 40 to 100. The big blind re-raises to 320 and I call.
The flop is 7c-9s-3c. The other player has about a 3-1 chips lead over me, and he bets what I've got left. Decision time: all-in or fold. I go all-in. I'm betting club draw. I'm right, he flips Kc-10c. At this point, he's got quite a few outs with two cards left to come. Any of the remaining 9 clubs, any of the three remaining K's and any running straight or trips. Only two cards improve my hand, the remaining Q's.
The turn is a harmless 7 of diamonds and the river is a harmless Ace of spades. I'm up to 1990.
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Hand #82

I'm now in second place with 1720, significantly trailing the leader. I'm in the big blind of 60 when I get Ah-10c. The big blind is raised to 120, and what the hell, I call, and so does another player.
The flop is 6d-9s-As. With five players, I gotta think I'm in pretty good shape. I've got top pair and the ten isn't a bad kicker. When the player in front of me bets 320, I'm worried my kicker isn't as good as I thought, and I fold. The big stack calls.
The turn is a 10 of diamonds (damn it!). The first player goes all-in and the big stack calls. The showdown is Ad-8c (big stack) vs. Ac-3c (small stack). The river is a 4 of clubs and the 8 kicker holds up. Another player is eliminated.
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Hand #84

I'm in third place with 1570, just 5 chips behind second, but 5000 chips behind first. I get As-Qs on the button. I raise the big blind of 60 to 120 and get one caller, the guy with whom I'm virtually tied.
The flop is 5d-9c-Qh. Great flop for me. He bets 330, but I don't believe him. I go all-in and he folds. I think going all-in was a mistake here. If he's got A-A or K-K or caught two pair, I'm done. I could have just raised about 500 chips or so and had the same effect. If I lose, I've still got some chips to play with. In the end, the 990 chips push me to 2050.
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Hand #102

The blinds have me down to 1600 now, in second place, but still well behind the leader. I get a pair of 5's in my pocket sitting in the big blind of 100.
The small stack raises to 200 and it's folded to me where I raise. I figure him for overcards, and he only had 260 chips coming into the hand.
He had two overcards alright, unfortunately they were the same card... two Q's.
The board shows 6d-Ks-4d-9d-9h, and he doubles up at my expense.
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Hand #111

I'm in third now, only 300 chips ahead of 4th, and well behind 1st and second. I get a pair of Q's in the small blind of 50. The UTG, who's in 4th, raises to 350 and I go all-in. He calls. Our second showdown in 9 hands.
This time he shows 6's, and I figure it's karma coming back my way. When the board shows 10s-5c-Jc-8d-5s, my Q's hold up and I'm up to 1580 and we're down to three players. I'm in the money.
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Hand #116

I'm up to 1830 chips and in the big blind of 100 when I get Ac-Jd. It's raised in front of me to 200 and we all call. All three are in the hand.
The flop is Ad-5d-6c. The first player checks, I bet 600 and get one caller. He's got about 1000 more chips than me coming into the hand. I like my position.
The turn is another 5 and a second club. He checks and so do I.
The river is an 8 of spades. He checks again and I go all-in. He folds and I'm up to 2500 chips.
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Hand #126

10 hands later and I'm in second with 1930 chips, still 5000 behind 1st. I'm in the small blind of 75 when I get a pair of 9's. The small stack (1145) goes all-in and I call him.
This time it is two overcards, Ah-10d. I hope my 9's hold up.
The flop is 2h-6h-Jh. He didn't pair, but that flush means I'm in big trouble.
The turn is another heart and I'm pissed. Plus I'm down to under 800 chips.
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Hand #131

I'm in the big blind of 150 with just 485 chips, well behind the other two players. Thankfully I get a pair of Q's and it's a hand with which I hope to double-up.
The second stack calls the big blind and I raise to 300, he calls.
The flop is 8c-10c-10d. He forces me all-in and I call.
Showdown and it's Ks-8s vs. my Q's. When the turn brings a 7 of clubs and the river a 2 of spades, I double up to 970.
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Hand #135

I'm back down to 745 in the small blind of 75 when I see Ah-4h. I call the big blind and get raised by the big stack who's sitting in the big blind. He's forcing me to go all-in or fold. There's an excellant chance he's got a better kicker than me, or maybe even a pair, but I am suited and that's gotta be worth something... right? I sure hope so, because I call.
He flips just Ks-7h, and I'm feeling pretty good. There's really just 6 cards that help him. Of course, he catches a 7 on the flop and a K on the turn. Nothing like catching two of the 6 cards in the entire deck. I get no help and my day is done.
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I walk away with $20 and I think I played okay. I wish I had been more agressive early when the play was very loose, but I really didn't have hands that were even worth chasing. If I don't lose to that running flush in Hand #126, I'm obviously in second, with at least a chance of catching first. The hearts did me in.