The annual World Series of Poker is the most prestigious poker event in the world – a month long festival of poker culminating in the WSOP Championship – a $10,000 buy-in No-Limit Texas Hold’em freezeout tournament which features the biggest prize pool in world poker.
Along with the Championship event there are now over 40 preliminary events across a wide variety of poker games. Although most are variants of Hold’em, there are Omaha, Stud, Razz and lowball tournaments as well, offering something for everyone.
The WSOP as we know it today began in 1970 with the crowning of the first WSOP Champion – Johnny Moss – elected by his peers in the absence of a championship tournament. The following year saw the inaugural WSOP main-event, and Johnny Moss triumphed once again, defeating five players to win the $30,000 first prize and the title of world champion.
Since then the WSOP has grown year on year, before virtually exploding in 2003 with the victory of the aptly named amateur Chris Moneymaker.
His victory, along with the advent of internet poker and television programs such as the WPT, helped fuel a boom in popularity that has been beyond anyone’s wildest expectations.
Thousands of people now flock to Las Vegas in June to take part in the WSOP, all hoping to win a coveted gold bracelet – given to the winner of a WSOP event along with the prize money. Currently Johnny Chan, Doyle Brunson and Phil Hellmuth stand at the top of the leaderboard with ten bracelets each.
The ultimate dream of all poker players is to win the WSOP Championship event and be crowned the WSOP Champion. The 2005 winner, Joe Hachem, won $7.5 million – at the time the biggest payout in sports history, while even the ninth placed finisher, Mike “The mouth” Matusow, won $1 million. This year that record was blown out of the water when 8773 players entered the main-event contributing to a prize pool of over $82 million. The eventual winner, Jamie Gold, took down a first prize of $12 million while in total 12 players ended the event with million dollar paydays.
The 2006 WSOP also featured the first ever event with a $50,000 buy-in. The H.O.R.S.E tournament is a mixture of Hold’em, Omaha, Razz, Stud and Stud Hi/Lo except for the final table which is exclusively NL Hold’em. Considered the toughest tournament in the game the final table was one of the best in WSOP history and the heads-up battle, won by Chip Reese, lasted over seven hours.
Only a handful of players have ever managed to win the WSOP championship event more than once, they are: Johnny Moss (3 times), Stu Ungar (3), Doyle Brunson (2) and Johnny Chan (2). Along with Phill Hellmuth, T.J. Cloutier, Men Nguyen, Berry Johnston, Chris Ferguson and Eric Seidel they are considered the most successful players in the history of the WSOP, and their achievements in this poker event have made them legends of the game.
Now with online poker rooms offering qualifiers to the WSOP, players can win entry by playing in online satellites for as little as $10; in 2006 over 4000 players qualified for the WSOP main-event in online cardrooms. Three of them made the final table...
Next year, it could be you…