WSOP History

Pocker has been a game played by some people for many years and it only recently became popular in the past five to ten years. The first ever WSOP tournament was held in 1970 and there we’re only a handful of opponents back then. One of the poker players who were playing back then when it started was Doyle Brunson who to this day continues playing in the WSOP tournaments. He is by far the most popular and recognized poker player in the world and everyone who likes poker has heard the name Doyle Brunson before.

Throughout the 1970’s poker began moving around and being played more often by people, but it was still looked at as a sketchy activity at this time. By the early 1980’s more players had emerged and Stu Ungar became the third player to win back to back WSOP titles only after Doyle Brunson and Johnny Moss.

The 80’s seen a huge surge in the amount of players attending WSOP tournaments and many more legends we’re created including Johnny Chan and Phil Hellmuth. Both of these players hold ten more WSOP poker bracelets which puts them into the poker record books.

Back in the 70’s and 80’s the prize pool money never reached what it does today and now the winner takes home millions of dollars for winning. Modern day legends like Chris Moneymaker and Greg Raymer who both endorse www.PokerStars.com have also become very popular as they’ve won the main event worth millions. All the young poker players today model themselves off of these main event winners and there are now tons of poker players fighting to become the next WSOP bracelet winner.

The tournaments went from a dozen players to thousands of players and now the tournaments take days to complete. Poker took over 30 years to grow in popularity, but now almost everyone has tried poker and there are over 10 million active poker players worldwide. It’s become one of the biggest sports in the world and you can even play on the internet nowadays. The early pioneers of poker could of never imagined that people around the world would be able to meet up on the internet to play poker, but it’s now possible and millions are doing it.

Since about the late 80’s early 90’s there have been a ton of poker satellite tournaments introduced to poker which allow players to enter huge tournaments by winning smaller tournaments. It’s a good way for any average person to be able to compete for millions of dollars in a massive poker tournament. Chris Moneymaker is a good example of an average guy winning over a million dollars on a $40 internet poker satellite tournament that he entered. Poker has been growing at an exceptional rate over the past decade and it doesn’t look like it will stop anytime soon and I expect the tournament to only get larger and worth more money. There is a huge history in the world series of poker that is almost 40 years old and it should continue well into its 100th anniversary.