Enjoy watching poker? This will be the best Main Event ever..

ESPN will be showing an unprecedented 34 hours of the Main Event, with only a 30 minute delay to the broadcasts.  They're going to do this until we get to the November Nine. 

This should be pretty awesome, it'll practically be like watching it live, without already knowing what's going to happen.

Schedule

sweet

Look at Saturday July 16th. 9 hours!??!?

“For the first time viewers at home will have the best seats in the house for the [WSOP], poker’s premier event. Fans will see hole cards post-flop and get an inside look at all of the strategy, angst and competition of the world’s best players vying for a seat at the most prestigious final table in the sport,” said Matthew Volk, ESPN manager of programming and acquisitions.

Being able to see cards post-flop, on the 30 minute delay, still beats having to wait a couple of months when you already know what's going to happen.

I would imagine it'll be like watching footage from the 90s, when Gabe Kaplan was announcing the World Series, and there were no hole cards showed at all...

I think it will be pretty good. I wonder how they're going to do the November Nine, if that'll be televised or not.

Wow, it must be a freakin miracle to you that they are able to post the current score of a basketball game without any delay. 

Hey now no one should bitch about this. Its ESPN only showing action hands is what gets rookies to think that they can bluff or hit there gutshot str8 draw every other hand

ESPN3 has the 25k Heads-up semi-final live stream right now and they are not showing the hole cards of each player (and clearly have the capability to do so). 

How do I go about signing up for this ESPN3? Do I have to go through my Internet provider?

I'm guessing watching without hole cards is like watching Stu Unger in the early 1990s.

just go to ESPN3.com and if it's on your home computer you'll get right on through your internet connection.

Thanks, I finally figured out how to register.

I see Haralabos Voulgaris is doing the broadcasting.  I actually follow him on twitter, he is quite the NBA handicapping guru.

Watching these last two guys get introduced for their heads-up championship is hilarious. It's like they are coming in for a heavyweight boxing match.

Wow. Without being able to see the hole cards poker really is...

I've watched about 25 hands, and having seen the hole cards once.

This isn't good as a spectator sport.

Although, I can understand why they have to do it this way. If someone was watching via the audience or even at home, and was friends with one of the players, they could tell them how their opponent was playing during an intermission or something.

It starts being televised tonight.

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.

Something tells me it's not going to be very enjoyable without the ability to see hole cards.

These announcers are stumbling every other sentence.  Quite different when they don't get a chance to do as many takes as they need

You got that right.  Norman Chads' rehearsed jokes just don't quite work live, maybe that's why he's not there.

Did you just see that AA versus A6 hand? So sick.

naw, I must have been rotating the sprinklers in the yard when that happened.  What happened?

I'm glad not see any Full Tilt logos on caps or shirts. 

fin player just got there with 9 high.... no pair, no draw.... running gutshots to send a guy home that flopped top pair and bet every street....

Two guys started clashing, pre-flop.

Raise.

Reraise.

Reraise.

One guy moves all in - the other guy instacalls.

The instacaller obviously had the aces. The other guy got caught with his pants down holding A6.

The flop comes K-10-6.

The turn is a blank.

River 6.

If it had happened online, people would be crying fix.  It was gross.