|
The official debut of the World Series of Poker was made in 1970, however the idea of the Horseshoe's annual tournament was actually developed more than two decades before.
The story goes that during the summer of 1949 while participating in a high-stakes poker tournament Nicholas 'Nick the Greek' Dandolos, while playing against Johnny Moss approached Benny Binion with an unusual request. Dandolos's idea was to create a tournament so that the best in a high-stakes poker could compete in a marathon event, Binion agreed to set up a match as long as it could take place in view of the public which was agreed to. The tournament was held before a public audience just incorporating Dandolos and Moss. The tournament lasted a staggering five months with the players only breaking to sleep. Dandolos and Moss played every form of poker imaginable, in the end Moss came out the ultimate winner of what was now know as 'the biggest game in town' winning an estimated $2 million.
Despite Binion taking note of the popularity of the five month tournament, it wasn't until 1970 that Binion decided to re-create this excitement and stage a battle of poker giants which was named the 'World Series of Poker'. The idea of the event was to determine who would be worthy of the title 'World Champion'. The idea attracted many of the best players in the country with Moss coming out on top. The decision was made in a democratic vote meaning that the champion was decided by popular vote. The format of the event had changed in 1971 so that the last man standing would be declared the winner, again it was Moss who was declared world champion. As the event continued year after year the popularity of the event grew and grew with more and more participants taking part each time. By the early 80's with the introduction of preliminary satellite competitions the popularity of the World Series of Poker had soared and when the series returned in 1982 it had drew 52 entrants, five years later there were 2,141 participants, and in 2002 the event attracted 7,595 entries with the prize money increasing proportionately, from $7,769,000 a decade ago to a staggering $19,599,230 in 2002. As the tournament grew so did the number of poker games in the 2004 World Series of Poker tournament there were 33 competitions that feature a wide variety of games.
There are a number of other historical highlights that are worth mentioning over the World Series of Poker include the comeback of Jack Strauss's after losing all but one chip of his stake early on in the tournament. Stu Ungar proved that it is never to late to show how great you are at poker when he picked up his third win 16 years after his repeat, having spent many of the intervening years out of competition and suffering from an addiction to cocaine. T. J. Cloutier one of the leading money winners in the World Series has won five World Series of Poker gold bracelets and has finished in the money at over thirty World Series of Poker events as well as finishing twice in second place and once each in third and fifth place in the main championship event of Texas Hold'em. One of the other big names in poker, Billy Baxter dominated the deuce-to-seven draw poker WSOP tournament for many years, with five 1st place finishes and two 2nd place finishes. There are many other well known poker names that have graced the World Series of Poker over the years, such as Doyle Brunson, Johnny Moss, Johnny Chan, Mickey Appleman, Bobby Baldwin, , and Thomas Austin 'Amarillo Slim' Preston.
However not all of WSOP's history is so great. In January 2004 agents from the Internal Revenue Service, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and U.S. Marshall's Service raided the Binion's Horseshoe event and seized less than $1 Million dollars which was owed to the Culinary Workers Union. Becky Binion Behnen and her husband Nick the owners at the time had to prove to the Nevada Gaming Control Board who had suspended the gaming license of Binion's Horseshoe that they could afford to pay all wages and other cost incurred during the event. Instead the Horseshoe was bought out by Harrah's Entertainment on the 12th of January, who had to reschedule the 2004 World Series of Poker Event. Despite this the legacy left by Binion has left the World Series of Poker as the most prestigious and largest media-hyped gaming competition in the world.
WSOP Satellites |
