entertainment - "event"

LAS VEGAS (AP) -The marathon grind toward the richest pot in poker is under way. Play opened in the 39th World Series of Poker main event Thursday, with more than 1,000 players hoping to make it through a 10-hour day of no-limit Texas Hold 'em agai...

It was the last of the 2008 World Series of Poker events prior to the main event. The $1,500 Limit Hold'em Shootout was the final one on the schedule of tournaments leading up to the one everyone has been waiting for, and it was the last chance for a player to win a bracelet without having to maneuver through a field of 6,000 to 8,000 players. read more in pokerworks.com

The final preliminary preceding the WSOP Main event, event #53, $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em, began its second day with 72 players still vying for the $278,180 first prize. At the start of the day, Matt Graham had already secured his third...

I got here a little early, mainly to make sure I beat the mad rush that will get here in about an hour and to make sure I got a seat on media row. There is NO event like the Main event in poker. People can talk all they want about the WPT Championship or the 50K H.O.R.S.E. event but this is the one that everybody dreams of... it's the impossible dream... the ultimate poker tournament. It's the one tournament where amateurs and professionals unite in force, at a whopping price of $10,000, to test their skills against one another. I know it is the one tournament that I personally dream of just playing in, and for many doing just that... playing in the Main event... is enough. read more in pokerworks.com

Somebody once made the reasonable observation that paybacks are hell. This was pretty much the theme of the Seniors No Limit Holdem event. Day 2 ended with Dale Eberle knocking Dan LaCourse out of the chip lead on the last hand, and Day 3 ended with Dan LaCourse knocking Dale Eberle out of the tournament and collecting his bracelet on the last hand of the day. If given a chance, Dale would probably have given up his Day 2 chip lead in order to be the one doing the eliminating at the end of Day 3. At the start of Day 3, only 50,000 chips separated Eberle and LaCourse.

Climb aboard a ferry and set sail for Governor's Island for the first ever new york Philharmonic performance there. The concert features works by Rossini, Copland, Rimsky-Korsakov and Tchaikovsky's famous '1812 Overture.'

The cheering section for Marty Smyth as he played for the event #50 ($10,000 Pot Limit Omaha) championship may as well have been wearing togas and singing 'Louie, Louie': they were that loud. This was the sort of rowdy crowd that would have been right at plotting the downfall of Dean Wormer with John Belushi and the boys during the film 'Animal House'. With these sorts of people cheering him on, it is no wonder that Marty lost track of his hand and didn't notice that his clubs were working themselves into a bracelet winning flush. According to the new champion, 'I didn't realize I had clubs.'

Usually when somebody puts on a display like the final table performance of event #43 champion Martin Klaser, people usually start in with nicknames like 'Klaser the Conqueror', 'The Great', or the 'The Terrible'. In the case of the last example 'terrible' is a compliment that hints to the fact that he personally eliminated half of the final table. It wasn't all roses and nicknames for King Kong Klaser: he may have started the final day near the top of the pack, but he had to work his tail off to break away from the pack on Day 2, and put himself in position to win it all.

Don't miss the 32nd Annual Macy's 4th of July Fireworks, visible from several locations throughout the city. The theme of this year's production, which features more than 120,000 bursts of pyrotechnic color, is 'America Dances.'

Today is the day! One of many 'the days' to come, actually. It is the 35th day of the 39th annual World Series of Poker, and the start of the most highly anticipated poker event of the year - the 2008 WSOP Main event, the $10,000 World Championship No Limit Holdem tournament that every poker player in the world dreams of winning, at least once. The event has been on a steady rise in attendance and popularity since its inception in 1970 when only a handful played. In 2003 Chris Moneymaker won $2.5 million thanks to a $40 satellite that got him a seat in the event; since that moment the poker boom skyrocketed, and attendance and payouts went up along with it - until last year.