Here’s to hoping ESPN does a good job hyping this. Wish Tiffany Michelle/Mike Matusow made it, but the only “pro” we’ve heard of is Chino Rheem. Not that it’s a bad thing — we’re going to have 9 new poker superstars — but it would have been nice for one of the “name” pros to be at the final table with this new structure.

Ivan Demidov, Ylon Schwartz or Chino Rheem winning would be good, in my opinion.

I love, love, love this new blog system.

This will be a very short first post. June highlights:

- I returned from Las Vegas and the first week of the 2008 World Series of Poker on June 7th after meeting a lot of great new people. Played a little bit of poker and cashed in nothing.

- I golfed for the fourth time in history and shot a 113, including two holes that I made par. Not bad for a newbie!

- I ate at Firefly, my favorite restaurant in Las Vegas. Then at Noodles, my second favorite place in Las Vegas, if not a bit touristy.

- I was introduced to fantastic Italian food at Ferraro’s, a wonderful place about 1 mile West of the Rio.

- I’ve been mountain biking and kayaking. I’ve renewed my passion to hit the gym and have vowed to get into better shape.

- I’ve thought about throwing my cell phone off of a bridge no less than 47 times.