World Series of Poker Tournament History
Nowadays World Series of Poker (WSOP) is one of the biggest (if not even the biggest one of all) international poker circuits. But let’s try to make a trip back in time and see what the history of this well known poker event is.
World Series of Poker - A bid of WSOP History
Everything started in 1970, when Tom Morehead (from Reno’s Riverside Casino) organized the first edition on World Series of Poker as an international, invitational only event. And the first winner (nominated by all seven player’s votes) was Johnny Moss, but unfortunely for him at that time he earned only a silver cup and the title of first “World Champion of Poker” and no cash prize.
The things started to change in the very next year when Benny Binion (maybe the biggest promoter of the poker game in the whole gambling industry) and his sons (Jack Binion and Ted Binion) get envolved in the event organization. At this time the first cash prizes appeared and they increased almost every year, eventually in 1991 reaching the incredible value of one million dollars. This prize stayed for 9 years, but starting with the new millennium its incredible growth was resumed and in 2005 the last winner of World Series of Poker went home with 7.5 million dollars!
I’ll mention here all world series of poker winners, and their earnings so you can see not only the list of champs but also how the prizes and the world series of poker payouts increased over time:
1971 WSOP – Johnny Moss – 30,000 USD
1972 WSOP – Amarillo Slim Preston – 80,000 USD
1973 WSOP – Puggy Pearson – 130,000 USD (for the very first time the 100.000 dollars milestone was passed)
1974 WSOP – Johnny Moss – 160,000 USD
1975 WSOP – Sailor Roberts – 210,000 USD
1976 WSOP – Doyle Brunson – 220,000 USD
1977 WSOP - Doyle Brunson – 340,000 USD (for the very first time the one quarter million dollars milestone was passed)
1978 WSOP – Bobby Baldwin – 210,000 USD
1979 WSOP – Hal Fowler – 270,000 USD
1980 WSOP – Stu Ungar – 385,000 USD
1981 WSOP – Stu Ungar – 375,000 USD
1982 WSOP – Jack Strauss – 520,000 USD (for the very first time the half million dollars milestone was passed)
1983 WSOP – Tom McEvoy – 580,000 USD
1984 WSOP – Jack Keller – 660,000 USD
1985 WSOP – Bill Smith – 700,000 USD
1986 WSOP – Berry Johnston – 570,000 USD
1987 WSOP – Johnny Chan – 625,000 USD
1988 WSOP – Johnny Chan – 700,000 USD
1989 WSOP – Phil Hellmuth Jr. – 755,000 USD (for the very first time the three quarter million dollars milestone was passed)
1990 WSOP – Mansour Matloubi – 895,000 USD
1991 WSOP – Brad Daugherty – 1,000,000 USD (and finally this historical day came, when the winner of the event won one million dollars)
1992 WSOP – Hamid Dastmalchi – 1,000,000 USD
1993 WSOP – Jim Bechtel – 1,000,000 USD
1994 WSOP – Russ Hamilton – 1,000,000 USD
1995 WSOP – Dan Harrington – 1,000,000 USD
1996 WSOP – Huck Seed – 1,000,000 USD
1997 WSOP – Stu Ungar – 1,000,000 USD
1998 WSOP – Scotty Nguyen – 1,000,000 USD
1999 WSOP – J.J. “Noel” Furlong – 1,000,000 USD
2000 WSOP – Chris Ferguson – 1,500,000 USD (after nine years when the winner prize remained 1 million dollars finally it went up again)
2001 WSOP – Carlos Mortensen – 1,500,000 USD
2002 WSOP – Rober Varkonyi – 2,000,000 USD (the grand prize goes up once again ‘till the incredible amount of 2 million dollars)
2003 WSOP – Chris Moneymaker – 2,500,000 USD (and once again ‘till 2.5 million dollars)
2004 WSOP – Greg Fossilman Raymer – 5,000,000 USD (incredible – the winner of 2004 WSOP won 5 million dollars)
2005 WSOP – Joe Hachem – 7,500,000 USD (and finally, the actual world champion, the winner of the last WSOP won the outrageus amount of 7.5 million dollars).
I have to mention also that starting with 1973 new events were added and removed to the main no limit Texas Hold’em, reaching in 2006 the number of 42 different events which cover all major poker variations (and here I mention just a few of them: Texas Hold’em, Omaha Hold’em, Five-cards stud, Seven-card stud, Eight or Better, Chinese Poker). Every event winners get, on top of their cash prize, a gold bracelet or a gold.
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[...] Nowadays World Series of Poker (WSOP) is one of the biggest (if not even the biggest one of all) international poker circuits. But let’s try to make a trip back in time and see what the history of this well known poker event is. …Read more… This entry was posted on Sunday, November 12th, 2006 at 8:05 pm and is filed under info120. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. [...]
November 12th, 2006 at 8:05 pm