World Series of Poker

World Series of Poker logo

The World Series of Poker , or WSOP for short , is a series of poker tournaments that take place in Las Vegas once a year over a period of a good month . The main tournament , a No Limit Hold'em variant with a buy-in of US $ 10,000 , is considered the most prestigious poker tournament ever, so the winner is known as the poker world champion. You can play from 21 years of age.

history

Johnny Moss , Chill Wills, Thomas Preston , Jack Binion and Puggy Pearson before Binion's Horseshoe at the 1974 WSOP

The Binion's Horseshoe in Las Vegas was 1970-2004 scene of the WSOP. Since 2005, all tournaments have been held at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino . In honor of 35 years of WSOP history, the 2005 Main Event final table was held at Horseshoe.

The World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE) has been held since 2007 and can be played from the age of 18. In 2013 and 2015, the World Series of Poker Asia Pacific (WSOP APAC) was played in Melbourne .

In 2008 the WSOP was pushed forward by a few weeks due to the summer heat in Las Vegas. Another major change was the postponement of the main event final table to November. This change was made due to considerations of the broadcasting television station ESPN .

Milestones

• The idea dates back to 1949 when Benny Binion hosted a five-month poker marathon between Nicholas “Nick the Greek” Dandolos and Johnny Moss .
• Benny Binion came up with the idea of ​​organizing further poker tournaments with great audience interest.
• In 1970 seven players took part in the first World Series of Poker . At that time, the winner was voted world champion by his teammates.
• Since 1971 the world champion has been determined in the so-called freeze-out mode.
• 1979 won with Hal Fowler for the first time an amateur the main event. It was not until 1999 that Noel Furlong achieved such an amateur victory again.
• In 2003 839 players took part in the main event and with Chris Moneymaker another amateur won the tournament. He qualified on PokerStars , triggering a poker boom that made the game increasingly socially acceptable.
• In 2004 , 2576 players paid the $ 10,000 buy-in to enter the tournament. Greg Raymer won and took home $ 5 million.
• Circuittournaments have been taking place since the beginning of 2005 , which also promise high prize money, but are not part of the actual WSOP in the summer.
• In 2005 there were 45 different tournaments. The main tournament had 5619 participants and the winner Joe Hachem won $ 7.5 million.
• In 2006 , three years after the surprise success of Chris Moneymaker , the number of participants was 8773, more than ten times as high. The winner, Jamie Gold , won the fourth most cash ever at a sporting event for $ 12 million.
• In 2007 , 6358 participants took part in the main event. The record from the previous year was therefore not broken.
• At the 43rd World Series of Poker in 2012 , Antonio Esfandiari won more than $ 18 million in a $ 1 million buy-in tournament called The Big One for One Drop .
• The 50th World Series of Poker was played from May to July 2019 . Based on a vote by poker journalists, a list of the 50 best players in poker history was published (in alphabetical order):

Patrik Antonius  Bobby Baldwin  Billy Baxter  Chris Björin  Justin Bonomo  Doyle Brunson  Joe Cada  Johnny Chan  Stephen Chidwick  TJ Cloutier

Allen Cunningham  Shaun Deeb  Tom Dwan  Eli Elezra  Antonio Esfandiari  Chris Ferguson  Ted Forrest  Phil Galfond  Barry Greenstein  Gus Hansen

Jennifer Harman  Dan Harrington  Isaac Haxton  Phil Hellmuth  John Hennigan  Fedor wood  Phil Ivey  Berry Johnston  John Juanda  Bryn Kenney

Jeff Lisandro  Adrian Mateos  Jason Mercier  Michael Mizrachi  Chris Moorman  Carlos Mortensen  Johnny Moss  Daniel Negreanu  Scotty Nguyen  Dominik Nitsche

Steve O'Dwyer  Walter Pearson  Thomas Preston  Brian Rast  Chip Reese  Huck Seed  Erik Seidel  Vanessa herself  Dewey Tomko  Stu Hungarian

Main tournament series

The Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas has been gambling since 2005

A tournament hall at the 2008 WSOP

Overview

#	year	Tournaments	Multiple bracelet winners
1	1970	1	-
2	1971	5	Johnny Moss (2)
3	1972	2	-
4th	1973	7th	Walter Pearson (3)
5	1974	6th	Jimmy Casella (2)
6th	1975	5	-
7th	1976	8th	Howard Andrew , Doyle Brunson (2 each)
8th	1977	13	Doyle Brunson , Bobby Baldwin (2 each)
9	1978	11	Gary Berland (2)
10	1979	12	Gary Berland , Lakewood Louie (2 each)
11	1980	12	-
12	1981	13	Stu Ungar (2)
13	1982	14th	Billy Baxter , David Sklansky (2 each)
14th	1983	16	Tom McEvoy (2)
15th	1984	14th	Jack Keller , Dewey Tomko (2 each)
16	1985	15th	-
17th	1986	12	-
18th	1987	12	-
19th	1988	12	-
20th	1989	14th	-
21st	1990	15th	-
22nd	1991	18th	-
23	1992	20th	-
24	1993	21st	Ted Forrest , Phil Hellmuth (3 each), Humberto Brenes (2)
25th	1994	21st	TJ Cloutier (2)
26th	1995	25th	Dan Harrington , Men Nguyen , Hilbert Shirey (2 each)
27	1996	25th	-
28	1997	22nd	Max Star (2)
29	1998	22nd	-
30th	1999	17th	-
31	2000	25th	Chris Ferguson (2)
32	2001	27	Nani Dollison , Scotty Nguyen (2 each)
33	2002	35	Phil Ivey (3), Layne Flack (2)
34	2003	36	Johnny Chan , Chris Ferguson , Layne Flack , Phil Hellmuth , John Juanda , Men Nguyen (2 each)
35	2004	34	Scott Fischman , Ted Forrest (2 each)
36	2005	43	Mark Seif (2)
37	2006	45	Bill Chen , Jeff Madsen (2 each)
38	2007	55	Tom Schneider (2)
39	2008	55	John Phan (2)
40	2009	57	Jeff Lisandro (3), Phil Ivey , Greg Müller , Brock Parker (2 each)
41	2010	57	Frank Kassela (2)
42	2011	58	Brian Rast (2)
43	2012	61	Greg Merson (2)
44	2013	62	Tom Schneider (2)
45	2014	65	George Danzer (2)
46	2015	68	Brian Hastings , Max Pescatori (2 each)
47	2016	69	Benny Glaser , Ian Johns , Jason Mercier (2 each)
48	2017	74	David Bach , Nipun Java (2 each)
49	2018	78	Justin Bonomo , Joe Cada , Shaun Deeb (2 each)
50	2019	90	Robert Campbell (2)
51	2020	101	because COVID-19 pandemic postponed

Bracelets

A bracelet at the 2007 WSOP

→ Main article : Bracelet

Any player who wins during the WSOP either the Main Event or any of the tournaments gets paid not only the respective winnings, but also receive a valuable bracelet from gold . This bracelet, which is called a bracelet in English , has the shape of a wristwatch , but instead of a dial it bears a gold emblem of the World Series of Poker . The bracelets are very popular among players because of this for many gem not the material but the ideal value counts. The ideal value is, among other things, that such a bracelet says that the player who wears it was able to prevail among several hundred or even thousands of participants in a tournament.

How coveted the bracelets really are is shown by the record hunt that has been going on for years between some of the most famous players. This record is about which player has won the most bracelets in their career to date. This record currently stands at 15 bracelets and is held by Phil Hellmuth (see also: List of multiple bracelet winners ). The youngest ever winner of a bracelet was Steve Billirakis at 21 years and 12 days.

Tournament chips

Overview of the tournament chips produced and used exclusively for the WSOP. The last version of the chips used is shown.

While the Horseshoe Casino used in-house tournament chips from 1970 to 2003, a series exclusively produced for the WSOP was used for the first time in 2004. This was made by the chip manufacturer Bud Jones and started with the values ​​25, 100, 500, 1000, 5000, 10,000 and 25,000. After the WSOP moved to the Rio in 2005, the design of the chips from the Horseshoe was largely adopted, but not the chips themselves, which resulted in a new series being produced and expanded again in the following two years (including a secondary set) or . has been adjusted (coloring, redundant values). The highest value in this series was the 100,000 chip last. In 2007, the chip producer Paulson was commissioned with the production of the new series and thus brought a completely new primary set into play, including a secondary set for side events and in case the main events ran out of primary chips. The use of primary and secondary sets does not always follow a consistent logic. Chips from the Bud Jones series were also occasionally used. Due to the increasing number of participants, ever higher values ​​had to be introduced. The current highest value is the 5,000,000 chip. The denominations and colors used for individual values ​​change again and again due to decisions made by the tournament management or feedback from the players. In 2017, 245,514 chips were in circulation during the main event.

Main events

→ Main article : World Series of Poker Main Event

Final table at the 2010 Main Event

year	Attendees	paid places	Prize money (in $ )	winner	origin	Second	origin	Final hands	Best woman
1970	0007th	0001	Silver cup	Johnny Moss *		-	-	-	-
1971	0006th	0001	00.030,000	Johnny Moss		Walter Pearson		unknown	-
1972	0008th	0001	00.080,000	Thomas Preston		Walter Pearson		K ♥ J ♦ vs. 6 6	-
1973	0013	0001	00.130,000	Walter Pearson		Johnny Moss		A ♠ 7 ♠ vs. K ♥ J ♠	-
1974	0016	0001	00.160,000	Johnny Moss		Crandall Addington		3 ♥ 3 ♠ vs. A ♣ 2 ♣	-
1975	0021st	0001	00.210,000	Brian Roberts		Bob Hooks		9 ♠ 9 ♥ vs. A ♣ K ♦	-
1976	0022nd	0001	00.220,000	Doyle Brunson		Jesse Alto		10 ♠ 2 ♠ vs. A ♠ J ♦	-
1977	0034	0001	00.340,000	Doyle Brunson		Gary Berland		10 ♠ 2 ♥ vs. 8 ♥ 5 ♣	-
1978	0042	0005	00.210,000	Bobby Baldwin		Crandall Addington		Q ♦ Q ♣ vs. 9 ♦ 9 ♣	-
1979	0054	0005	00.270,000	Hal Fowler		Bobby Hoff		7 ♠ 6 ♦ vs. A ♣ A ♥	-
1980	0073	0005	00.385,000	Stu Hungarian		Doyle Brunson		5 ♠ 4 ♠ vs. A ♥ 7 ♠	-
1981	0075	0009	00.375,000	Stu Hungarian		Perry Green		A ♥ Q ♥ vs. 10 ♠ 9 ♦	-
1982	0104	0009	00.520,000	Jack Straus		Dewey Tomko		A ♥ 10 ♠ vs. A ♦ 4 ♦	-
1983	0108	0010	00.540,000	Tom McEvoy		Rod Peate		Q ♦ Q ♠ vs. K ♦ J ♦	-
1984	0132	0009	00.660,000	Jack Keller		Byron Wolford		10 ♥ 10 ♠ vs. 6 ♥ 4 ♥	-
1985	0140	0009	00.700,000	Bill Smith		TJ Cloutier		3 ♠ 3 ♥ vs. A ♦ 3 ♣	-
1986	0141	0036	00.570,000	Berry Johnston		Mike Hart		A ♠ 10 ♥ vs. A ♦ 8 ♦	Wendeen Eolis (25.)
1987	0152	0036	00.625,000	Johnny Chan		Frank Henderson		A ♠ 9 ♣ vs. 4 ♦ 4 ♣	-
1988	0167	0036	00.700,000	Johnny Chan		Erik Seidel		J ♣ 9 ♣ vs. Q ♣ 7 ♥	-
1989	0178	0036	00.755,000	Phil Hellmuth		Johnny Chan		9 ♠ 9 ♣ vs. A ♠ 7 ♠	-
1990	0194	0036	00.835,000	Mansour Matloubi		Hans Lund		6 ♥ 6 ♠ vs. 4 ♦ 4 ♣	-
1991	0215	0036	01,000,000	Brad Daugherty		Don Holt		K ♠ J ♠ vs. 7 ♥ 3 ♥	-
1992	0201	0036	01,000,000	Hamid Dastmalchi		Tom Jacobs		8 ♥ 4 ♣ vs. J ♦ 7 ♠	-
1993	0220	0027	01,000,000	Jim Bechtel		Glenn Cozen		J ♣ 6 ♥ vs. 7 ♠ 4 ♦	Marsha Wagoner (19.)
1994	0268	0027	01,000,000	Russ Hamilton		Hugh Vincent		K ♠ 8 ♥ vs. 8 ♣ 5 ♥	Barbara Samuelson (10.)
1995	0273	0027	01,000,000	Dan Harrington		Howard Goldfarb		9 ♦ 8 ♦ vs. A ♥ 7 ♣	Barbara Enright (5th)
1996	0295	0027	01,000,000	Huck Seed		Bruce Van Horn		9 ♦ 8 ♦ vs. K ♣ 8 ♣	Lucy Rokach (26.)
1997	0312	0027	01,000,000	Stu Hungarian		John Strzemp		A ♥ 4 ♣ vs. A ♠ 8 ♣	Marsha Wagoner (12.)
1998	0350	0027	01,000,000	Scotty Nguyen		Kevin McBride		J ♦ 9 ♣ vs. Q ♥ 10 ♥	Susie Isaacs (10th)
1999	0393	0036	01,000,000	Noel Furlong		Alan Goehring		5 ♣ 5 ♦ vs. 6 ♥ 6 ♣	-
2000	0512	0045	01,500,000	Chris Ferguson		TJ Cloutier		A ♠ 9 ♣ vs. A ♦ Q ♣	Annie Duke (10.)
2001	0613	0045	01,500,000	Carlos Mortensen		Dewey Tomko		K ♣ Q ♣ vs. A ♠ A ♥	-
2002	0631	0045	02,000,000	Robert Varkonyi		Julian Gardner		Q ♦ 10 ♠ vs. J ♣ 8 ♣	-
2003	0839	0063	02,500,000	Chris Moneymaker		Sam Farha		5 ♦ 4 ♠ vs. J ♥ 10 ♦	Annie Duke (47th)
2004	2576	0226	05,000,000	Greg Raymer		David Williams		8 ♠ 8 ♦ vs. A ♥ 4 ♠	Rose Richie (98th)
2005	5619	0560	07,500,000	Joe Hachem		Steve Dannenmann		7 ♣ 3 ♠ vs. A ♦ 3 ♣	Tiffany Williamson (15th)
2006	8773	0873	12,000,000	Jamie Gold		Paul Wasicka		Q ♠ 9 ♣ vs. 10 ♥ 10 ♠	Sabyl Cohen-Landrum (56th)
2007	6358	0621	08,250,000	Jerry Yang		Tuan Lam		8 ♣ 8 ♦ vs. A ♦ Q ♦	Maria Ho (38.)
2008	6844	0666	09,152,416	Peter Eastgate		Ivan Demidov		A ♦ 5 ♠ vs. 4 ♥ 2 ♥	Tiffany Michelle (17.)
2009	6494	0648	08,546,435	Joe Cada		Darvin Moon		9 ♦ 9 ♣ vs. Q ♦ J ♦	Leo Margets (27.)
2010	7319	0747	08,944,310	Jonathan Duhamel		John Racener		A ♠ J ♥ vs. K ♦ 8 ♦	Breeze Zuckerman (121.)
2011	6865	0693	08,715,368	Pius Heinz		Martin Staszko		A ♠ K ♣ vs. 10 ♣ 7 ♣	Erika Moutinho (29.)
2012	6598	0666	08,531,853	Greg Merson		Jesse Sylvia		K ♦ 5 ♦ vs. Q ♠ J ♠	Gaëlle Baumann (10.)
2013	6352	0648	08,361,570	Ryan Riess		Jay Farber		A ♥ K ♥ vs. Q ♠ 5 ♠	Jackie Glazier (31st)
2014	6683	0693	10,000,000	Martin Jacobson		Felix Stephensen		10 ♥ 10 ♦ vs. A ♥ 9 ♥	Maria Ho (77.)
2015	6420	1000	07,683,346	Joe McKeehen		Joshua Beckley		A ♥ 10 ♦ vs. 4 ♦ 4 ♣	Kelly Minkin (29.)
2016	6737	1011	08.005.310	Qui Nguyen		Gordon Vayo		K ♣ 10 ♣ vs. J ♠ 10 ♠	Gaëlle Baumann (102.)
2017	7221	1084	08,150,000	Scott Blumstein		Daniel Ott		A ♥ 2 ♦ vs. A ♦ 8 ♦	Yuan Li (105th)
2018	7874	1182	08,800,000	John Cynn		Tony Miles		K ♣ J ♣ vs. Q ♣ 8 ♥	Kelly Minkin (50th)
2019	8569	1286	10,000,000	Hossein Ensan		Dario Sammartino		K ♥ K ♣ vs. 8 ♠ 4 ♠	Jill Bryant (116th)
2020	because COVID-19 pandemic postponed

^* Johnny Moss was chosen by the other contestants.

Player of the Year

Daniel Negreanu was the only player to twice as Player of the Year honored

Since 2004, the tournament management has also given a Player of the Year Award to the player who has collected the most points across all tournaments of the annual event. The calculation of the scores varies from year to year and also includes the results of the expansions .

year	player	origin	Bracelets	Final tables	Cashes	Prize money (in $ )
2004	Daniel Negreanu		1	5	6th	0.346.280
2005	Allen Cunningham		1	4th	5	1.006.935
2006	Jeff Madsen		2	4th	4th	1,467,852
2007	Tom Schneider		2	3	3	0.416,829
2008	Erick Lindgren		1	3	5	1,348,528
2009	Jeff Lisandro		3	4th	6th	0.807.521
2010	Frank Kassela		2	3	6th	1,255,314
2011	Ben Lamb		1	4th	5	5,352,970
2012	Greg Merson		2	2	4th	9,755,180
2013	Daniel Negreanu		2	4th	10	2,214,304
2014	George Danzer		3	5	10	0.878.993
2015	Mike Gorodinsky		1	3	8th	1,766,796
2016	Jason Mercier		2	4th	11	0.960.424
2017	Chris Ferguson		1	4th	23	0.428.423
2018	Shaun Deeb		2	4th	20th	2,545,623
2019	Robert Campbell		2	6th	13	0.750.844

Expansions

WSOP Europe

World Series of Poker Europe logo

→ Main article : World Series of Poker Europe

#	year	city	Tournaments	Main Event
				Attendees	winner	origin	Prize money
1	2007	London	3	362	Annette Obrestad		£ 1,000,000
2	2008	London	4th	363	John Juanda		0.£ 868,800
3	2009	London	4th	334	Barry Shulman		0.£ 801,603
4th	2010	London	5	346	James board		0.£ 830,401
5	2011	Cannes	7th	593	Elio Fox		€ 1,400,000
6th	2012	Cannes	7th	420	Phil Hellmuth		€ 1,022,376
7th	2013	Enghien-les-Bains	8th	375	Adrian Mateos		€ 1,000,000
8th	2015	Berlin	10	313	Kevin MacPhee		0.€ 883,000
9	2017	Rozvadov	11	529	Martí Roca de Torres		€ 1,115,207
10	2018	Rozvadov	10	534	Jack Sinclair		€ 1,122,239
11	2019	Rozvadov	15th	541	Alexandros Kolonias		€ 1,133,678

WSOP Asia Pacific

→ Main article : World Series of Poker Asia Pacific

#	year	city	Tournaments	Main Event
				Attendees	winner	origin	Prize money (in A $ )
1	2013	Melbourne	5	405	Daniel Negreanu		1,038,825
2	2014	Melbourne	10	329	Scott Davies		0.850.136

On-line

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic , the World Series of Poker Online will take place for the first time from July to September 2020 on the WSOP.com and GGPoker platforms, a complete online tournament with 85 events.

Web links

Commons : World Series of Poker  - Collection of Images

• Official website (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ World Series of Poker Main Event Curiosities and Facts , pokerolymp.com, accessed June 2, 2019
2. ↑ WSOP Reveals List of 50 Greatest Players in Poker History , pokernews.com, accessed July 1, 2019
3. ↑ WSOP Chip Usage History - Main Events , pokerchipforum.com, accessed July 16, 2019
4. ↑ I bet you I can guess how many physical chips are in play ... , pokerstars.com, accessed on July 16, 2019
5. ↑ GGPoker: 85 WSOP bracelets are waiting for the World Series of Poker Online! on pokerfirma.com on June 8, 2020, accessed July 2, 2020.