Live Tournaments

The World Series of Poker main event is the biggest tournament around, and the winner of the main event can call himself the world champion in poker for a year. It all started in 1969 in Reno by Tom Moore. He held a tournament that in the first year was won by Crandall Addington, who still has the record in most top ten places in the main event, (eight). The Binion family would later on take over the running of the tournament, and in 1970 it was played at the Binion’s Horseshoe and called the World Series of Poker. The series include some variations of poker but the biggest tournament, the main event is a freeze out, no limit, Texas Hold ‘em poker style.

It was 45 events in the latest World Series, 2006, with almost all of the different poker variants. Texas Hold ‘em, Omaha, Seven Card stud and lowball is some styles that has been played.

The participants have been growing for almost every year, for example; in 2000 there were 4780 entrants to all events combined, (512 in the main event). In 2006 main event only, it was 8773 entrants.

Event winner will apart from the prize money get a golden bracelet. Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan and Phil Hellmuth Jr. are the three most successful players in the Word Series of Poker. Each player has taken home 10 tournaments in World Series of Poker.

One answer to the exploding growth of entrants could be that the tournaments in World Series of Poker are televised. It has expanded over the years, and for the last years ESPN has had the rights for the tournaments, and their coverage has helped the World Series to grow bigger. They have “sneak peak” at the pocket cards, giving the viewers a greater experience than they would have had otherwise. ESPN got some experienced commentators that know a lot about the game. And they give some interviews with the participants giving the viewers a deeper insight of the game.

The main event

The main event is a no limit Texas Hold ‘em style with a $10,000 buy in. This means that the prize money has grown to enormous sizes. For example, Jamie Gold, (The winner of 2006 main event) won $12,000,000. Three players has become legends, winning the main event back to back: Doyle Brunson (1976-1977), Stu Ungar (1980-1981) and the latest one Johnny Chan who won the main event back to back in 1987-1988.

The main event became even more famous when it was featured in the Hollywood produced movie “Rounders”