As cards change, so do lives.(Sports)

Byline: STEVE WILSTEIN Associated Press

Las Vegas

The World Series of Poker creates legends and changes lives, makes instant millionaires and megastars, pits world-class rounders against online amateurs, brings together Hollywood celebrities and red-eyed denizens of backroom games.

It's a sport without athletics, a marathon that doesn't move. It takes skill and luck, math and feel, and it's captured an audience of millions of players and TV viewers of all ages.

Once the province of a small cadre of pros, poker's most renowned affair has burgeoned into the world's richest spectacle - some $100 million worth of games that go on for six weeks …