World Series of Poker
admin on December 17th, 2008
The World Series of Poker (or the WSOP to its fans) is handily the most popular land-based poker event on the planet. Confident poker professionals and hopeful amateurs alike descend each year on one of Las Vegas, Nevada’s most popular casinos for their shot at winning a share of millions of dollars and, maybe even more importantly than that, the bragging rights among their peers.
The legend of the World Series of Poker dates it back to 1949 when Benny Binion was asked to facilitate a heads-up challenge between Nick ‘the Greek’ Dandolos and Johnny Moss. The tournament lasted a full 5 months and went in Moss’s favor, for a cool 2 mil. Twenty-one years later Binion reinvented the event at his Horseshoe Casino, with a player-pool of 7 and winner decided by popular vote, and one year later the WSOP was born as a freeze-out, winner-take-all tournament decided by the process of elimination.
Today’s World Series of Poker attracts player pools in the tens of thousands and hosts some 36+ events covering the poker gamut:
• from Texas Holdem to Omaha to Stud and Draw to H.O.R.S.E. and Razz;
• from Limit to Pot Limit to No Limit
• from low stakes to the highest of high
The World Series of Poker also hosts special events for seniors, ladies, and celebrity events for charity. Winners of all World Series of Poker events win a prestigious golden bracelet along with their cash winnings.
Many online poker rooms host satellite tournaments offering, as top prize, free entries into the crowning event of each year’s WSOP, the coveted Main Event, boasting the year’s top prize.
Numerous times in recent years, the winner of the WSOP Main Event was an amateur player who won his seat in an online poker room WSOP satellite.
