Decks, Lies & Videotape

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ESPN taped the one-month event at Binion's last May, piping the view of the hole cards into tape machines secured by armed guards to prevent cheating. Then they added play-by-play in postproduction. "You don't see everything they play," says McEachern. "You see a representative number of hands, exciting hands, to be TV friendly." In between the action, there are refreshingly cheese-free player profiles introducing the likes of Annie Duke, the top poker-playing woman, who came in 10th in 2000 while eight months' pregnant; Dutch Boyd, a math genius who went to college at age 12; and Chris (Jesus) Ferguson, a graduate student at UCLA who can slice a banana with a thrown playing card from 50 ft. away.

The two best characters, though, are Moneymaker and "Houston Sammy" Farha, a pro whose cultivated look of disreputability is an artistic achievement. In World Series' last episode, Moneymaker and Farha square off with $2.5 million stacked between them. They play quietly. They stare at each other. They lie. And the bigger liar wins. --Reported by Amy Lennard Goehner