Main Event

Las Vegas is poised for an unprecedented stretch of big-time tournament poker that starts next week with the World Poker Tour's season-ending World Championship at the Bellagio and continues through the World Series of Poker at the Rio, which runs a marathon seven weeks from late June to mid-August. In between those two poker heavyweights, Caesars Palace will hold a WSOP Circuit tournament, and both the Mirage and Mandalay Bay will deal major WPT events. Plus the Tournament of Champions, also at the Rio, is wedged in at the beginning of the World Series.

The obvious question about poker since the game's popularity rocketed in 2003 has been: Can the growth continue? That query will be answered to some degree by the entries for this year's World Series of Poker main event, the game's bellwether tournament. It was the WSOP main event in 2003, won by a then-unknown accountant from Tennessee named Chris Moneymaker, that helped ignite interest in poker. That year, there were 839 main event competitors. In just a year, participation in the $10,000 No-Limit Texas Hold 'em tournament jumped more than three-fold to 2,576, something pro Phil Gordon credited, in part, to "the Moneymaker effect."

Whether you're serving a glistening, glazed ham, stately standing prime rib of beef, a sleek leg of lamb, golden roasted turkey or another equally tantalizing Christmas main course, if you're like me you may remain undecided on the side dishes until the last minute. I'm opting for a beef tenderloin as the star attraction this year, and I've picked a dessert (chocolate chestnut cheesecake) and an appetizer (Stilton surrounded with dried fruit and crisp crackers). But the accompaniments were still up in the air until a few days ago. During a recent cooking class where I prepared wild rice with apples, cranberries and sausage as part of the menu, I had a eureka moment, suddenly realizing that this side dish was so versatile it could accompany any number of holiday entrees.

Baseball Phillies vs. Nationals Where -- RFK Stadium, Washington When -- Tonight, 7:05; tomorrow, 4:10 p.m.; Sunday, 1:05 p.m. What now? -- Tickets starting at just $7 remain for all three games of the Nationals' final series of their first season in Washington. And now that the Orioles have played their last home game of the year, this is your last chance to see major league baseball until the spring. Philadelphia is still alive - barely - for the National League wild card, so maybe Washington will do a better job of playing the spoiler than the Orioles did. Online -- nationals.

During the early morning limo ride to pick up a $4.25 million check after finishing second in the World Series of Poker main event in Las Vegas last month, Anne Arundel accountant Steve Dannenmann lapsed into a moment of philosophical musing. "You know, I never play the lottery," said Dannenmann, an amateur player who had outlasted more than 5,600 competitors. "Because with my luck, I'd win - and it might change my life." If Dannenmann, 39, really has such fears, he'd better be braced.

CHICAGO - Former world heavyweight champion Oliver McCall, a 40-year-old who once split victories with Lennox Lewis, stopped Polish heavyweight Przemyslaw Saleta in the fourth round of their scheduled 10-round bout at the United Center last night. McCall's victory came on the undercard of a main event featuring Baltimore native Hasim Rahman (40-5-1, 33 KOs) against Monte Barrett (31-3, 17 KOs) for the World Boxing Council's interim heavyweight title, whose winner will get a shot at WBC champion Vitali Klitschko in December.

Every epic struggle has its chronicler, whether in verse or image. The Trojan War had Homer; the American Civil War, Mathew Brady. And the World Series of Poker has Bob Chesterman, who, as coordinating producer, has helped record ESPN's coverage of the Las Vegas poker championship the past three years. While TV poker is ubiquitous across the dial, it's the poker World Series telecasts that have become the most recognizable and familiar showcase for the game. Over the course of ESPN's poker shows, audiences have been introduced to a cast of stoic pros, antagonistic foils, and the occasional Everyman who hits the jackpot.

LAS VEGAS - Steve Dannenmann, an Anne Arundel accountant, has a strategy for winning the World Series of Poker main event. It involves riding only in cabs whose serial number ends in an even digit, taking the same route from his hotel to the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino where the tournament is being played, wearing the same tan shirt daily and not ever allowing his wife to watch. And, oh yeah, there's the same brand of socks that say, "Champion," but those he changes. And there's this crumpled-up paper with a list of poker do's and don'ts, such as, "Avoid coin flips when you have the big stack."

LAS VEGAS - For the first five hours of the second round of the World Series of Poker main event Sunday, Barbara Enright - the only woman to ever reach the final table of the famous No Limit Texas Hold 'em championship - played exactly four hands. Considering Enright's typically aggressive style, this was the poker equivalent of Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning throwing four passes in the first half of a football game. Never looking at anything better than a pair of eights as her hole cards, Enright saw her stack of chips dwindle to $2,500.

For millions of TV viewers who have watched the countless reruns of last year's World Series of Poker main event, winner Greg Raymer is frozen in time wearing his trademark novelty sunglasses and gleefully holding aloft a fistful of bundled cash - part of a $5 million payday. Not surprisingly, as a result of that improbable victory, the life of the unassuming 40-year-old Connecticut patent attorney changed. But it also was nearly ended. One night in December, after playing poker at the ritzy Bellagio in Las Vegas and looking forward to competing in a televised tournament the next day, Raymer found himself staring down a gun barrel as two holdup men demanded his money.