Jack Sheehan on why, perhaps in spite of its boom in popularity, the World Series of Poker is one of the most endearing events in Las Vegas

Sunday, June 10, 2007 | 7:04 a.m.

They're here. Some ten thousand of them, with their headbands, iPods, designer jogging outfits, blaster shades and over-the-top bling.

Butchers, bakers, candlestick makers, homemakers, meter maids, past-their-prime athletes and former stockbrokers burned out on reading the ticker have found their way to Las Vegas. They've all come to chase the elusive dream of winning a wheelbarrow full of cash and to gain a slice of immortality in the world of high-action gambling.

Either from their own kick, or on loan from a neighbor they've been whipping in the weekly game, or by maxing out already threadbare credit cards, all those who could pony up 10 grand to enter the 2007 World Series of Poker are now in town hoping to become the next Jesus (Ferguson) or Moneymaker (Chris).

The surest way to instant celebrity in the U.S. - other than warbling your way to the title on "American Idol"- is to outlast a small city of bluffers and be crowned the winner of an event that started in the 1970s as a way for cowboys and ex-cons to claim bragging rights at Binion's Horseshoe . But the tournament has clearly outgrown "Benny's place." In the past five years the WSOP has been on steroids, with the number of entrants expanding geometrically each year, and the event is now about to bust out the walls of the far more spacious Rio .

If there's one sure thing you can bet on over the next several weeks, it's that the man or woman who wins the World Series' final-table bracelet and the mountain of over 10 million in cold cash will be someone you've never heard of. And that's because, as poker babe and world-class card shark Annie Duke says : "Men and women nowadays can become good players in two years just by playing on the Internet. In the '80s and '90s it was impossible to learn the game anywhere near as quickly as it is today."

It also doesn't hurt that poker can be found on about five TV channels at any hour of the day. When you grow weary of hearing about Paris' and Lindsay's travails in jail or rehab, you can flip to another channel where you can find your mailman going "all in" with an unsuited jack-seven.

Perhaps the most ingenious advance in growing the popularity of poker is the innovative Lipstick Cam, which allows couch potatoes to see behind the betting tactics of the best players. The strategies used by pros like Phil Ivey and Daniel Negreanu are as familiar to poker aficionados as Oprah is to soccer moms.

The phenomenon of amateur poker players knocking out seasoned pros in the World Series occurred at precisely the same time as the Internet started to take over the world, in the mid- to late '90s. But you won't hear the icons complaining about all the upstarts, because the popularity of poker has ratcheted up the veterans' annual incomes and turned them into household names.

Every entrant in this year's tournament knows that Doyle Brunson is the Babe Ruth of the sport, that Chip Reese is considered by many to be the Ty Cobb (the best all-around player), and that Jack Binion is to big-time tournament poker what Abner Doubleday was to baseball, namely its founder. As such, all these men have seen their capital intake accelerate from Web sites or appearance fees so that none of them has to hit an inside straight ever again to lead a comfortable life.

Reese told me last summer that the odds of someone winning two World Series in a row, as was done in the early years by Johnny Moss, Brunson, Stu "The Kid" Ungar and Johnny Chan, is about one in 12 zeros. And that's because nearly all the newcomers to the World Series have read books and articles by and about these champions, and they all bring their own quirky styles of strategy and bluffing to the table.

Basically, the new breed knows far more about the established pros than vice versa, and for an old-timer to dodge all the upstarts trying to knock him off requires even more luck than skill. And to do it back to back against 10,000 players, well, forget it.

It certainly hasn't hurt that some of the testosterone and cigar smoke of big-time Vegas poker have been tempered by the scent of Chanel No. 5. When women like actress Jennifer Tilly can win a World Series gold bracelet, as she did in 2005, and "American Pie" bombshell Shannon Elizabeth can hang in there with the big boys at a final table, it brings the fairer half to the game in droves and puts even more male eyeballs on the television coverage.

Spider-Man Tobey Maguire is a familiar face around World Series time, as is the actor who hated to be called Bennifer, and then went and married a woman named Jennifer.

A Los Angeles media dude named Norman Chad has morphed himself from a sportswriter and movie critic into an armchair comedian with his one-liners about the idiosyncrasies of the best players and a plethora of corny lines about his ex-wives. If you watch enough poker on the tube, you will understand precisely why all the women Chad married now carry the ex- prefix, but what the heck. The guy's making a better living than some of the early bust-outs from the tournament, and he occasionally comes up with a knee-slapper.

If it can be said that an event defines a town, like the Kentucky Derby in Louisville and the arrival of the swallows at Capistrano, then the World Series of Poker is the annual event that most clearly defines Las Vegas. Colorful characters , with dozens of oddballs sprinkled in, a high celebrity factor, huge money, and round-the-clock action, broken hearts and busted dreams, and one big winner in the end. You gotta love it.