History of the WSOP

The World Series of Poker or WSOP has become the most popular poker tournament in the US and world, but it didn’t start off that way. The official beginnings of the WSOP belong to 1970. However, it was known before that as the Horseshoe’s annual tournament and began two decades earlier. The first tournament was in 1949 with Nick the Greek Dandolos. Nick went to Benny Binion with a request to challenge the best high stakes poker individuals, so a tournament between Nick and Johnny Moss was set up. The game had to be played in public view for everyone to see. This would allow everyone from miles around to watch the two best players battle it out at a table.

The marathon between the two individuals lasted for five months. They did take sleeping breaks, but for the most part they played every poker variation known at the time for several hours a day. Moss was the ultimate winner of the marathon and won 2 million USD for his troubles. The tournament was so renowned that Binion felt he had to do more tournaments like it for the people that gathered.

The first tournament was not seen again until 1970 though. This was when the next marathon style poker began in order to stage that long ago battle. Of course there were a few different players then and the stakes were for more than just money. At the end of the 1970 tournament the winner began the World Champion, and thus the name for WSOP. Moss was in attendance and came out on top. The next year things changed again for the WSOP to offer a freeze out style of play in which everyone could come to play, and they would be eliminated as the battle continued. Most played in the following year, but in 1972 it was a new individual to take the stakes higher.

Thomas Amarillo Slim Preston won the title for World Champion and went on to do some talk shows. It was the press from Slim’s win that truly created the game we see today played on the telly. In 1980 the first satellite competition was offered for the tournament raking in more money and notoriety for Binion. In 2002 19,600,000 USD was won, which is certainly more than the 2 million put up in the first competition ever played.

Today Benny Binion’s ideas are still going with the oldest, most successful tournament. To begin in the tournament there will be hundreds of players working towards making the preliminaries each year, and then the top ten go to the final round and play until there is a winner. Benny offered several ideas to the WSOP and with names like Amarillo Slim winning it was always going to be a success. The excitement just watching the competition offers is something that one should see at least once. While it is a hard tournament to get into, there is definitely a lot of press to go with the history made with a win.