Although for most players it is not the most tragic effect of the recent DOJ Black Friday indictments, television poker has been hit extremely hard. The filming of poker television shows ground to a very sudden halt and even series which still had unscreened episodes to show were cancelled, with their slots quickly filled by other programming. Finally TV poker fans are receiving a healthy dose of good news from ESPN, who have announced they will be more than doubling their coverage of this year’s World Series of Poker and for the first time ever introducing Limited Delay live coverage of hole cards.

It’s probably best to start stocking up on popcorn and excuses for why you have to be absent from work or college now, as in comparison to previous years ESPN will be offering awesome additional coverage this year, totaling 126 hours. This is the first year in history that ESPN is offering daily coverage of the World Series of Poker Main Event, switching between two feature tables on a roughly 30 minute basis, making sure to show hands where two players are all-in, of course. The truly exciting piece of news isn’t the increased coverage hours, however, rather that the coverage will be live and will include players’ hole cards post-flop.

The coverage will be unedited and live on a 30 minute delay, which allows ESPN to then show the hole cards of the players who are still in the hand post-flop. Of course the problem with showing direct live coverage of hole cards is that security then needs to be impeccable to ensure that viewers at home aren’t somehow contacting players in the hand with information on their opponents’ holdings. This is an awesome step for fans as it finally means they can experience the drama as good as first-hand, and it brings live tournament coverage onto the same level as more popular pre-filmed poker television shows where hole cards are visible.

The response to this is not only positive from fans, but also seems to be approved by players themselves. Respected poker pro Barry Greenstein said, “This is a long-awaited step to get live poker on television, and it represents another good collaboration between Caesars, the WSOP Players Advisory Council and ESPN to create a production format that maintains the integrity of the tournament while giving fans what they want to see.” WSOP Executive Director Ty Stewart is also very pleased with the addition and is proud of how the company is “dedicated to realizing the potential of the game.”

In addition to live Main Event coverage, World Series of Poker Grudge Matches will also be broadcast live on a five-minute delay, although without hole-cards being displayed. The idea of these Grudge Matches is to offer Main Event heads-up players a chance to rematch each other and this year we will be seeing three matches, namely Chris Moneymaker vs Sam Farha who played heads up for the 2003 Main Event, Phil Hellmuth vs Johnny Chan from 1989 (in which Johnny Chan narrowly missed out on being the only person in living history to win three consecutive Main Events, having won in 1987 and 1988) and a third match which will be later decided by fan vote.

In light of the recent flurry of cancellations and general downsizing in the Poker Television scene, it’s awesome to see that poker fans are still being thought of and will have something to cheer for. Even more exciting is that we are finally getting live coverage of players’ hole cards, giving us an unparalleled chance to enjoy the action and sweat with the players, making the whole experience that much more fun. This year’s World Series of Poker is now less than four weeks away, so look forward to this enhanced coverage coming to ESPN very soon!