Whilst there are many poker tournaments taking place around the world each and every day, the most popular poker tournament is the famed World Series of Poker. Starting in 1970 as a six person tournament, the World Series of Poker has grown into an event that has a prize money value of millions of dollars.
The very first of these tournaments was in 1970 took place in The Horseshoe Casino in Las Vegas, where it was hosted for the following 34 years. Owned by Benny Binion, he invited six of the best and well known poker players in the country to play a variety of different poker games, with the winner, Johnny Moss, being the player with the greatest amount of chips left after all games had been complete.
One of the most prominent points about the World Series of Poker is the pinnacle to the tournament, the Texas Hold Em main event. Starting in 1971 with a buy in of 5,000 dollars, this grew to 10,000 dollars in 1972, a figure which it has stayed at ever since.
Somewhat surprisingly, the whole event was not a resounding overnight success and it took over a decade before the tournament attracted even a mere 52 participants in the whole series. Growing in entrants year on year, the prize money also grew substantially. From 1971, there was no known prize money in the first tournament back in 1970, when the prize money was 30,000 dollars, it had increased considerably two decades later and stood at a magnanimous 1,000,000 dollars. Considering the amount of entrants that were in the final main table competition, the odds of winning were fantastic, assuming experience and professionalism were at the forefront of any players game.
Since 1973, this worldwide famous poker tournament has had unprecedented media and television coverage, which has become of a better quality and more in depth each and every year. When the 1973 tournament was being covered on television, it featured little more than an overview of the tables. However, the 1980s and 1990s saw a rise in the quality, with player interviews being introduced and hints and tips offered to the viewers along the way.
Although now considered a given, 2002 brought the introduction of the much loved card camera. Located under each players area of the table, the card camera offers views of each players cards when they place them face down in the marked area. This was a great addition the World Series of Poker coverage as finally viewers could see what cards each player had been dealt and the strategies they were playing, without having to wait until all bets had been taken. Furthermore, the card camera is often underrated as many young professional poker players have cited one of their main learning styles as being the card camera, as it allowed them to make notes of how other professional players were handling the cards they were given and the betting strategies they were implementing.
A fantastic poker tournament, this famed and much loved poker tournament is a tournament that anyone can enter and win, assuming that they are good enough at the game, which has been seen in recent years, with one example being an amateur poker player with only 2 years playing experience winning at the final table.
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