TWO ACTION-PACKED HOURS OF WSOP MAIN EVENT COVERAGE AIR TONIGHT ON ESPN
The 2011 World Series of Poker continues its Main Event coverage on ESPN Tuesday night at 8 PM ET -- or 5 PM on the West Coast.
 
In this week's episodes, new faces emerged to take charge on Day 4, including overall chip leader Patrick Poirier, who learns quickly that being the chip leader is fraught with peril.
 
WSOP Circuit National champion Sam Barnhard and pink-haired Frenchman Guillaume Darcourt steal some of the spotlight and some of the chips.
 
The Poker Brat Phil Hellmuth holds court on the feature table for part of the telecast, but he's nursing a fairly short stack and finding a troublesome nemesis in veteran pro Martin de Knijff.
 
Over on the outer tables, this week's telecast features notables including Ted Forrest, Allen Cunningham, Jean-Robert Bellande and Daniel Negreanu, who are all trying to accumulate chips -- or in some cases just survive.
 
Later in the show, Hellmuth nears the money bubble but is running out of chips.  After three 2nd-place finishes in earlier events at the WSOP, Hellmuth must reach the money to try and build on his lead in the WSOP Player of the Year race and hope Ben Lamb cools down and doesn't reach the money.
 
With 693 players cashing in this year's Main Event, ESPN coverage in this telecast includes the pivotal "money bubble" where the field is down to 694 players and hand-for-hand play begins.
 
No one wants to be the one to finish one out from the money (a minimum of $19k), but we will meet the unlucky soul and see if there's any satisfaction on getting so close.
 
After this point in the tournament, all the remaining players will bring home some fruits for their labor, but it now becomes about building stacks and positioning themselves for deep runs and dreams of making the November Nine.
 
All the Tuesday night WSOP Main Event coverage will feature hole cards during hands, and follows the traditional Tuesday night format poker fans have come to expect from ESPN in terms of World Series of Poker action.
 
A starting field of 6,865 players entered the $10,000 buy-in event this year, creating an enormous $64,531,000 prize pool which will make the eight finalists all millionaires and the winner will walk away with $8,711,956.
 
Who will make the "November Nine" and return in November to a sold-out Penn & Teller theater?  The journey has begun, and each and every week, the WSOP on ESPN will bring viewers inside the event to follow the storylines that develop throughout gaming's richest annual event.