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World Series of Poker better than World Series of baseball

As a kid, I loved baseball.
I played baseball.
I watched baseball on TV
I listened to baseball on radio.
I collected baseball cards.
I knew the number and name of every player on the Wichita Falls Spudders' minor league roster.

So who would have ever thought that some day I would rather be watching the World Series of Poker than the World Series of baseball?

But this year I looked at the Phillies and Yankees -- not because I was really interested in the World Series but instead probably because it is the World Series and something inside of me tells me I have to be interested.

Poker is now more exciting to me than baseball.
I watched the World Series of Poker on ESPN every Tuesday night.
I could not wait until the November Nine and the final table.

Last year I went to Vegas for the final table and was sitting tableside on the stage of the Rio's Penn and Teller Theater when Peter Eastgate won the title.
This year I was at MSU's preseason basketball dinner, just wishing my friends Denny Bishop and Charlie Carr would shut up so I could get home and watch poker's most exciting moment.

Could Phil Ivey -- the greatest player on the face of the earth -- overcome a chip leader with a stack more than six times the size of his?
Would Garvin Moon -- the chip leader lumberjack from Maryland -- be as lucky in the end as he was in the beginning?

As Denny and Charlie were talking -- and talking -- and talking, my DVR was doing its job and saving every hand for me.

So I got to watch every minute of the final table that ESPN chose to show.
A kid not old enough to shave won again.
One year after the 22-year-old Eastgate became the youngest WSOP main event winner, 21-year-old Joe Cada broke his record.
Cada won more than $8.5 million for surviving a field of more than 6,400 poker players.

He won all that with a pair of 9's.
After playing great poker the whole way, Ham bet his tournament life on a queen-jack of diamonds.
The two over cards never hit -- and Cada is king of Las Vegas.

I can't wait until the next one.

Posted by Nick Gholson at 8:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)