Thousands of poker players from around the world have descended on the Rio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas for the 38th annual World Series of Poker Main Event, including leading Irish players.
Some 6,500 players registered for the $10,000 (€7,270) entry no-limit Texas Hold'em tournament and the last 621 players standing will share in a $60 million prize pool, making it the second biggest poker tournament in history.
The winner will be deemed the world champion of poker and will receive $8.25 million and a world series of poker bracelet.
In recent years Irish players have performed well, with Dublin based Andrew Black and John Magill from Ballymena, Co Antrim, scooping over $1 million for strong finishes in 2005 and 2006 respectively.
Poker blogger Mike Lacey of greenjokerpoker.com spoke to The Irish Times from Las Vegas where he is busy providing updates and following the progress of Irish participants.
"The Irish create a great atmosphere wherever they go and there are around 100 Irish players playing in the main event and another 40 over here supporting and playing the side games around Las Vegas," he said.
"Currently, Conor Tate from Lurgan, Phil Campbell from Belfast and Paul Cryan from Dublin all have over 100,000 chips, which is well above the tournament average."
The event required four separate first days to facilitate the number of entrants and it will not culminate until July 17th, when the last 10 players will take their seats for the final table.
Due to gambling legislation passed last year in the United States restricting internet poker, where many players earn their main event entries, the number of players participating in this year's main event has fallen by 2,000.
However, tournament organisers were still pleased by the turnout.
"Poker is alive and well, and the 2007 world series of poker has been a tremendous success," world series commissioner Jeffrey Pollack said.
The main event is the centre piece of the 55 event world series. In all, the 2007 series generated a total prize pool of almost $160 million and over 54,000 people registered for the various events with some Irish successes among them.
Alan Smurfit, brother of Dr Michael Smurfit, won a $1,500 pot-limit Omaha event and Ciaran O'Leary, a Corkman now living in Seattle, won over $700,000 and a bracelet in a $1,500 Texas Hold'em tournament.
The poker industry has boomed since the growth of internet poker, where many players win and lose huge sums of money. The majority of players enjoy the game responsibly but as with all forms of gambling there are those who chase losses and develop addiction problems.
"We promote responsible gaming by making it easy for our customers to control their own betting through self-imposed deposit limits and self exclusion facilities," a spokesman for Paddy Power Poker said.
For online poker addicts access to extra funds from credit cards can be just a mouse click away and although poker websites do have customer screening programmes in place some players still slip through the net.
"I regularly encounter players who are degenerate gamblers. I've known players to keep large debts from their spouses and continue playing without any hope of long-term success or parity," John Casey a professional internet poker player from Dublin said.
