Cake Poker Blog

Into the breech of the WSOP

by admin June 28th, 2010

Going from my home in the Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina to Las Vegas requires only that I show a drivers license and boarding pass to the proper TSA authorities. Sometimes it feels as if I should be presenting my passport and proper inter-galactic transfer documents.

You get off the plane at McCarran and are immediately bombarded with a sea of humanity, the clang of slot machines, the larger-than-life ads for the various shows. Then you step outside the airport and are slammed with larger-than-life heat.

Toto, we’re not in Appalachia anymore.

In my particular case it was even more chaotic than usual. I branched directly from the airport to the Rio so I could get on the ESPN webcast of the Tournament of Champions at the WSOP. [1] The cabbie was pissed at me for asking him to take Paradise rather than the (longer) Tunnel/I-215 route so he got my bag out of the trunk, dropped it on the pavement and drove away without a word. The cabbie behind him looked at me with a bemused expression, clearly wondering what I’d done to twist the guy’s knickers. Ah, Vegas cabbies.

I dropped my bags at the bell desk and headed straight for the ESPN room. Like all broadcasting rooms, it was approximately 30% too small for the people and hardware that needed to be in there, but it was good to be back in the broadcasting saddle. This is my first gig with ESPN and I’m delighted to part of it. In particular, it’s cool to work with Matt Maranz, who heads up the ESPN broadcasting of both the WSOP and the NAPT. And it’s extra cool to be working with James Hartigan and Francine Watson, friends who I made while doing broadcasting on the European Poker Tour. I also got to see my old friend Dan Goldman who was doing some color commentary too.

Nerve center of the ESPN WSOP webcast

At the top left of the image you see the aforementioned Francine, and to her left, Dylan Boucherle, whose mom lives in my hometown. Small world. Producer Charlie Dixon, with whom I’m working for the first time, is front and center-ish.

It’s not NCIS, but it gets the job done

This is the view from the command post. The two backs in the front of the image are (L to R) Matt Maranz and Dave Swartz. Note Dave’s iPad already occupying a place of importance in the broadcast.

At least for now, it’s good to be back in the buzz. And it’s always good to hang with my poker milieu friends whom I see all too rarely. One of those people is Pauly McGuire, whose blog is a must-read for anybody who likes good writing, and/or Phish, and/or poker.