The World Series of Poker is one of the exciting things that poker has going for it that many of the other games don’t. You don’t see roulette or keno on TV and articles about it in the newspaper but this isn’t the case with poker. The World Series of Poker is one of the most closely watched events in the world. Hundreds watch it, thousands play in it and millions dream of doing well in it.

After all, if you do manage to do well at it, you can make a name for yourself. It can set you up in the poker world. If you win the World Series of Poker that is like winning the US Masters, Wimbledon or an Olympic gold medal. Everyone wants to play with you and for you to play in their game.

An example of this is Doyle Brunson who has made his name as a prodigious winner at the World Series of Poker. He has won the main event twice as well as a number of other events. Although having said that there were only 22 and 34 people competing in the Main Event the two years that he won. Compare this to the 6494 that took part in 2009.

There was steady growth in terms of the number of people competing in it and when Chris Moneymaker won in 2003 there were 839 competitiors. The next year this exploded to 2576. Things peaked in 2006 with 8773 and as a result he walked away with a record 12 million first prize money. This may be a lot but consider that Robert Varkonyi won a sixth of that amount in 2002 when he won but there were nearly 14 times less people then. If things had been proportional, Gold would have won close to $25 million.

The World Series of Poker began in 1970 when Benny Binion basically made the tournament up. He invited six people and that was how it began. Johnny Moss won the first one and would go on to win another two. The who’s who of Poker such as Stu Ungar, Johnny Chan, Phil Hellmuth and Amarillo Slim have all won the Main Event. It is the crowning achievement for any player.

Although saying that it is significantly harder for someone like Phil Ivey or Daniel Negreanu to win it these days just because of the amount of people who play in it. He came closest in 2009 when he finished seventh. He had no luck at the final table and just ran out of chips. Still people Cialis Professional are still waiting for one of the modern day greats such as Gus Hansen or Tom Dwan to win it.

There are now over 50 events at the World Series of Poker and it runs for two months. The main event now finishes in late July and the final table resumes in November. This is done primarily for TV but people seem to like this. Everyone dreams of being one of those final nine.

Author Bio: As a journalist in the gaming industry Seth Peters felt that an article about the world series of poker is rather appropriate. There are those who question if poker is really a sport and if it deserves such great publicity. Seth believes that poker is a sport and he is glad that he can be there to cover its world series.

Category: Recreation and Leisure/Gambling
Keywords: World Series of Poker, Poker Player, Poker is a Sport, Ladbrokes Poker