The Amazon Room
opens its doors again
today with the start of
the 2008 World Series of
Poker and will remain
that way for the next six
weeks, fifty-five events
are scheduled with
thousands of players
expected to battle it out
for millions of dollars.

Typically reserved for extraordinarily large conventions, the Amazon Room of the Rio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas is said to be the size of a football field with a space for more than 200 Poker tables that run tournaments, cash games, and satellite events around the clock.

An elaborate stage is also reportedly prepared for all the televised final tables complete with a full ESPN crew and seating for spectators.

“Never in a million years would I have thought Poker would ever come to this,” Poker legend Doyle Brunson said.

So many changes are scheduled to happen to this year’s World Series, reports said.

The highlights of the event will start from July 3 to 14, however, the final nine players that will make the final table will have to wait until Nov. 9 so the ESPN cameras can catch the action and have a live broadcast.

According to reports there is also an overwhelming increase in the number of large buy-in tournaments.

During the past years, the World Series flooded with lower $1,500 buy-in tournaments that made the events accessible to a larger percentage of Poker players, but were criticized for their repetitiveness.

The $10,000 buy-in for the Main Event was the largest found in Poker but now the 2008 World Series has now made it possible to schedule eight $10,000 buy-in in various games and formats with the first tournament, the World Championship of Pot Limit holdem, scheduled to begin Friday.

If playing an event is not in your plans, there are still two ways to follow all the tournament action.

You can be updated by Online Poker web sites such as cardplayer.com, worldseriesofpoker.com and bluffmagazine.com when it comes to chip counts, cashes and spotlight hand updates.

Better if you happen to be in Vegas since you can just walk over to the Rio and check out the tournaments free of charge.

Throughout the World Series, you can pick any random day and chances are you will bump into dozens of the famous faces seen on television that will be more than willing to sign an autograph — provided they do not desperately need to take their scheduled bathroom break.

June 25 is the start day for the World Series’ richest event-the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E tournament, which informally crowns best “all-around” player- where there’s a Poker legend at every table, and some tables may have a millionaire sitting in every seat.

The championship chase is one of the most interesting angle in writing a news story.

In 2007 after winning his 11th, Phil Hellmuth scored a higher record than Brunson and Johnny Chan.

Another angle which people should follow is size of the field for the Main Event.

After setting a record in 2006 with 8,773 players, the field thinned down nearly 2,500 players to 6,358 in 2007; this devaluation in field was a result of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, which handcuffed the Online Poker sites from buying players into the tournament via satellites.