2009 WCOOP: Barry and Behind the Scenes

You may not know Bryan Slick, but you know his work. To put a finer point on it, you know what he calls, "his baby."

Slick is the man in charge of making sure $40,000,000 worth of poker tournaments go off without a hitch. Slick runs WCOOP from an underground bunker guarded by armed mercenaries and a few cats. If something goes wrong (as it very rarely does), it's on his back. If it goes right, he'll pretend he got lucky. It takes a lot of people to make a successful WCOOP, but when it goes off, it happened in large part because Slick obsessed about it for months at a time and went sleepless for several weeks. He's mildly insane, relentlessly obsessive, and proud to call WCOOP his ward.

That is a long introduction to a 20-minute piece put together by our friends over at PokerStars.tv. The 2009 WCOOP Preview show tells you all you need to know about WCOOP and offers a behind-the-scenes look at the tournament series from Mr. Slick himself.

The video also features an interview with Team PokerStars Pro Barry Greenstein. You can hear what he has to say and learn a lot more about WCOOP by clicking on the little box below Barry's mug.

As you should know by now, WCOOP starts on Thursday and will continue for more than two weeks. You can check in with WCOOP.com to plan how you'll win.

In the meantime, enjoy the video above.