Back on the Road: There's No Rest for Tournament Pros

Life as a professional tournament poker player is one of constant motion. Airplanes full of sleepy-eyed players crisscross the country every week thanks to a schedule of tournaments that is as packed as a clown car.

Unlike other sports, where a long off-season follows the championship game, poker doesn't have an off-season. Whenever a tournament's over - no matter that it's called a championship - players soon find themselves on another flight heading to another location.

But then again, although the brain drain at a big tournament is immense, poker players don't need a few months off for their bodies to heal, although some players could use it. Poker pros also have the option to take a tournament or two off if they feel like it, and many do.

Men "the Master" Nguyen, the 2005 Card Player Magazine Player of the Year, took several weeks off last summer to visit his family in Asia. The break seemed to help him. When he returned, he went on a tournament tear that gave him enough points for the PoY honors.

The World Poker Tour crowned its champion on Monday in the Five-Star World Poker Classic's $25,500 buy-in event, which also acted as the climax of the fourth season of the popular TV show. After taking a short two-week break, the fifth season begins in earnest May 14, at the Mirage Poker Showdown.

Three days before the WPT event at the Mirage starts, a World Series of Poker circuit event takes place at Caesars Las Vegas. The event is actually going on right now, but the $10,000 buy-in championship starts May 11.

Later in May, a WSOP circuit event takes place at Harrah's in New Orleans. The $10,000 buy-in event starts May 25.

Less than 10 days later, the WPT rolls to the Mandalay Bay Poker Championship, and four days after that ends, it will head to Paris for the Grand Prix de Paris that starts June 16.

For tournament players without a passport, a $10,000 WSOP Circuit event also starts June 16. Nine days after that finishes, the WSOP Circuit Tournament of Champions takes place at the Rio in Las Vegas, which coincides with the start of the WSOP, the month-and-a-half-long poker series that will attract thousands of poker players from all over the world.

Many of those players have mastered the art of traveling the past few years as the number of poker tournaments multiplied like bacteria in a Petri dish. And the tournaments keep coming.

The chairs from the WSOP main event won't even be cool yet when the WPT starts back up on Aug. 26, with the Legends of Poker at the Bicycle Casino in Los Angeles. And on and on it goes, until, before they know it, the pros will be back at the Bellagio for the WPT Championship and another year will have evaporated into poker history.

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