Poker is one of the most accepted casino games, and the World Series of Poker (WSOP) is one of the most popular and largest tournaments of poker held every year in Las Vegas. In 2007 WSOP, there were 55 different events which were arranged.
The winner of this event is awarded with a bracelet (WSOP gold bracelet) and cash prize based on the sale of tickets. Most of the poker variants are featured, and in recent years, almost half of the events are variants of Texas Hold’EM. WSOP concludes with $10,000 no limit hold’ em, which catches the attention of the visitors to this series; furthermore winner gets the cash prize of $1,000,000 and a beautiful Gold Plated Bracelet. Since 2005, the key sponsor of WSOP is Harrah’s Entertainment.
Format:
Since 1971, the winner of this poker event received the cash prize along with gold bracelet. In 1973, a new poker game commenced in WSOP which was named “Card Stud” and since then, many new games of poker were launched and removed. However, almost 45 events were held in 2005 WSOP tournament that covered almost every variant of poker. Like all other series and tournaments, the sponsoring casino takes an entry fee, certain percentage of which is taken as buy-in price, whereas the rest of the money is distributed among the winners. In 2005 WSOP, total 52,818,610 was given to the players and the champion got $7.5 million.
Highlights:
Every year the number of participants in this extravagant event increases, and in the last two or three tournaments, the participants were simply in thousands. Although the buy-in price is now 10 times more than that of the 90s, but the interest of the people is increasing day by day in this tournament and they are gradually showing an urge to participate in this tournament. From the year 2000, the players all around the world come to participate in this mega event while before this there were only USA participants. Statistics show that in 2005, there were more than 5,000 players participating in this tournament and in 2006, almost 800 players took part in a single event; and there were more than 45 events which were arranged. So you may realize the astounding increase in the number of participants. Phil Heellmuth was one of the players who won most WSOP bracelets and 11 times runner up, while Doyle Brunson and Johnny Chan also won 10 bracelets each. Doyle and his son also won a bracelet in WSOP and became the only pair of father and son who won a bracelet in WSOP. Following four players won the WSOP tournament more than one time
• Johnny Moss (1971 and 1974)
• Doyle Brunson (1976 and 1977)
• Stu Ungar (1980, 1981 and 1997)
• Johnny Chan (1987 and 1988).
