The World Series Main Event has been the site of many of poker’s greatest comebacks. This year, it launches one more.

There was Stuey Ungar’s incredible resurrection in 1997, 16 years and a hell of a lot of miles after he’d last won there. There was Jack Straus’ legendary “chip and a chair” comeback in 1982, when he turned one stray poker chip into a world championship and more than a half-million dollars. And more recently, in 2007, there was Jerry Yang, who had beaten the odds just by surviving long enough to make it to America decades earlier, rallying from eighth chip position at the start of the final table to a place in history when the last card was dealt.

Now it’s 2009. And it’s ALL IN’s turn.

As our loyal readers probably noticed, ALL IN hasn’t published in several months. The simple truth is, we needed to take a short-term hiatus in order to make adjustments and give ourselves long-term staying power. Now we’re back. It’s the World Series of Poker Main Event, where legendary comebacks happen. And ALL IN is re-launching in style.

Along with the magazine, allinmag.com is also re-launching, with new features on the site every day. We’ll have more to tell you about our online plans in next month’s issue. But the main thing for now is that the highest quality print publication in poker, a magazine I’ve been proud to edit for nearly five years, has returned to subscribers’ mailboxes, newsstands, and card rooms everywhere.

The first big comeback of this year’s WSOP Main Event is in the books. Now it’ll be fun to sit back and see if somebody provides a similarly compelling resurrection at the Rio’s poker tables.

Right after the Main Event (at least the July portion of it) ends, poker’s most significant battle of the summer kicks off. The Poker Players Alliance has deemed the week of July 19-25 “National Poker Week.” All week, the PPA, a grassroots organization fighting for American citizens’ rights to play this great game without being terrorized by their own government, will be in Washington, D.C., talking directly to members of Congress, trying to undo the disgraceful wrongs of the soul-less Bill Frist’s Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act.

More than 30 PPA State Directors and at least six superstar poker pros will lead the fight in our nation’s capitol. “National Poker Week, with events in Washington, D.C., and across the country, is the PPA’s way to make it clear to my former colleagues in the U.S. Congress that poker is important to voters and is here to stay,” said PPA Chairman and former U.S. Senator Alfonse D’Amato.

The PPA will send a petition to President Obama—a poker player when he’s not so busy running the country, as you may recall—asking for his support to make poker exempt from the UIGEA. Just go to www.pokerpetition.com to sign the petition, or go to www.nationalpokerweek.com to learn more about the week’s goals and events.

It’s been a long, difficult process, but with a new administration in office, hopefully change is in the air. With any luck, online poker in the U.S. will make just as big of a comeback in the months ahead as ALL IN is making.