The World Series of Poker Background

The World Series of Poker (WSOP) is "the oldest, largest, most prestigious, and most media-hyped gaming competition in the world". It is held annually in Las Vegas. The first WSOP occurred in 1970 was an invitational wherein Benny Binion invited six of the best known poker players to The Horseshoe Casino. At first, the WSOP grew slowly. It took twelve years before the event drew 52 participants in 1982. In the early 1980s satellites were introduced allowing people to win their way into the various events for less than the full entry fees. By 1987, there were over 2,100 entrants into the tournament. Participation peaked in 2006, with 8,773 people participating in the Main Event alone.

The first World Series of Poker was not a freeze out tournament, but rather an event with a set start and stop time with the winner determined by secret ballot. In 1973, a second event, five-card stud was added. Over the years most of the major poker variants have been played at one time or another. Since 2007, the WSOP has consisted of 55 events. While events traditionally take place over one or more consecutive days during the series in June and July, in 2008 the Main Event final table was delayed until November. The winner of each event wins a World Series of Poker bracelet and a monetary prize based on the number of entrants and buy-in amounts. A World Series of Poker bracelet is considered the most coveted prize or trophy a poker player can win, with one from the Main Event revered above all others.Since 1976, a bracelet has been awarded to the winner of every event at the annual WSOP. WSOP victories prior to 1976 are also known as "bracelets". Most of the major poker variants are featured, though in recent years over half of the events have been variants of Texas hold 'em.

The series culminates with the $10,000 no-limit hold'em "Main Event", which since 2004 has attracted entrants numbering in the thousands. The victor receives a multi-million dollar prize. The winner of the World Series of Poker Main Event is considered to be the World Champion of Poker. Since its inception, Stu Ungar is the only player to have won the Main Event three times. Johnny Moss also holds three Main Event titles, however the first win was not played in the current tournament format but by a vote making Ungar the only three-time champion in terms of actual victories. Moss (if the first time win by vote is counted), Ungar, Doyle Brunson, and Johnny Chan are the only people who have won the Main Event for two consecutive years. Johnny Chan's second victory in 1988 was featured on the 1998 film Rounders. Phil Hellmuth holds multiple WSOP records: most bracelets (11), WSOP cashes (68) and most WSOP final tables (41).The current Main Event bracelet winner, Peter Eastgate is the youngest person to win the Main Event. Since 2005, the WSOP has been sponsored by Harrah's Entertainment.

World Poker Tour background information.

The World Poker Tour is a collection of Texas hold 'em poker tournaments held internationally, but mainly in the United States. The television show and the broadcasts of the World Series of Poker have led to a boom in the table game across American homes, in local casino poker rooms and online. The key sponsors of the tour are casinos and online poker sites. The show, which is syndicated internationally, is co-hosted by World Series of Poker bracelet winner Mike Sexton, and actor Vince Van Patten.
The tour had its debut season in the latter part of 2002 and early part of 2003, climaxing with the WPT Championship in April 2003 at the Bellagio Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. The first season aired on the Travel Channel on American cable television in the spring of 2003. The show made its network debut on February 1, 2004 on NBC with a special "Battle Of Champions" tournament, which aired against CBS coverage of the Super Bowl XXXVIII pre-game show. The Travel Channel aired the first five seasons of the Tour. In April 2007, WPTE announced that the series would move to GSN for its sixth season in the spring of 2008. The first WPT tournament to air on GSN, the Mirage Poker Showdown, debuted on March 24, 2008. In July 2008, WPTE announced that the series would move to Fox Sports Net for its seventh season.

INSANE BLUFF

Tom Dwan

Tom Dwan is famous throughout internet forums and chat rooms. When other college students see a young player such as Tom Dwan being so successful, they believe they can make large amounts of money too. He is the trail blazer for young online poker players.

Dwan began playing poker at age 17 in New Jersey. He first started out on play-money tables on Paradise Poker, before he deposited some cash and started playing low-stakes SNGs. He decided to choose a screen name with the goal of tilting people (“durrrr”). He saw from the beginning that he was a winner. He said “I never really worried if I was good at it; I just thought everyone else was bad and it seemed like an easy way to make money.”

Two months into his poker career he moved to the cash tables. By the time he turned 18 he had won around $15,000 and was looking for higher stakes to play in. He says he started playing $40/$80 limit and went on a good run to win about $35k. Then he lost $20k and switched to no-limit. At that time he had around $40k to his name and was playing $5/$10 NL. Then he moved up to $25/$50 losing about $10k. He proceeded to move back down until about three months later when he had more money and has been gaining ever since then. He has risen to the top in a very short amount of time but Dwan is quick to downplay his success. “I run good, what can I say?” he said jokingly.

A couple years ago Bluff magazine ran a piece on Tom Dwan and his housemate David Benefield (“Raptor517”). Chris Vaughn watched Tom Dwan play a quick session. He said a quick “sesh” for Dwan involved him opening up six tables with the smallest limit being played was $100/$200 NL Hold’em. In less than an hour Chris Vaughn witnessed this fearless, young poker phenom win nearly $200,000. He made this amount of money in less than an hour! That means he made approximately $4500 a minute or $75 a second! That sounds better than any job he could get out of college.

His reputation is so well known among fellow online poker players that it is sometimes hard for him to get a game.

Tom Dwan’s ability to make stellar calls is that of legend. On one such hand he called down Patrik Antonius’s $100,000 rive bluff with third pair. He says, “In that hand I had a timing tell on Patrik Antonius, but most of the time it comes down to putting your opponent on a range of hands and deciding what they would do with that range a percentage of the time. Against a really good play I can never be 100%, but if I am 75% sure I am always going to make the call.”
Tom Dwan has started to play a lot more pot-limit omaha because he believes his edge is bigger, even though he is better at NL, because the people he is playing against are worst he believes. He claims this is because in PLO you get more cards, you get more good hands and it’s easier to think you’re amazing. He says it is a better game to make money off of.

Since Tom Dwan has turned 21 he has decided to join the live tournament circuit. He has had some great success so far with a 4th place finish at the WPT Foxwoods event (NLH), 2nd place finish at the Aussie Millions Poker Championship (PLO), and 2nd place finish at the WPT Borgata Winter Open (NLH).

Those who watch Dwan play say he has the audacity and raw intelligence that resembles Phil Ivey. He is known to be a very nice guy and easy to get along with but journalist Alun Bowden witnessed him play a $2,000 game of rock, paper, scissors with another poker phenom Sorel Mizzi. He stared at his opponent, looking fierce with his glazed eyes focused on his every move.
He is fearless when it comes to gambling. During the 2007 WSOP he had $50,000 prop bet with his house-mate David Benefield where he had to play a series of high stakes chess matches against an International Chess Master who started without one rook. Dwan lost that bet.

When people tell Dwan that he is a natural talent he is quick to squash that idea. He says “I think the natural talent thing is pretty overrated. I think anyone can learn to play poker and do pretty well if they are intelligent and open-mind.”

Watch WCOOP Highlights: $5,200 Main Event on PokerStars.tv

Ivan Demidov

Following the same path as many others who later became multi-millionaire poker players, Russian pro Ivan Demidov started out playing computer game StarCraft. But by the time he graduated in 2004 from Moscow State University with a degree in Math, he'd moved on to the far more lucrative poker circuit - a career progression that would change his life forever just four years later.

Before 2008, Ivan had a few cashes in tournaments back home in Moscow. He also made the final table of a side event at the Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic in 2007, taking home $21,710 for a 3rd place finish. At the 2008 World Series of Poker*, he picked up a cash of $39,000 for almost making the final table of the $1,000 No Limit Hold'em event, eventually finishing in 11th. But even with this confidence boost, Ivan probably didn't rate his chances too highly when it came time for the Main Event. It may be the biggest title in poker, but with over 6,000 runners, getting there is one hell of a long road.

Someone has to make it though. And after eleven long days and 6,835 eliminations, Ivan found himself one of the final nine, with a real shot at winning the title. In the 117 day break before the Final Table was set to begin, Ivan could have taken some well-earned time off. But that's not his style. Instead he went to London to play in the World Series of Poker* Europe Main Event. He somehow made the final table there as well, picking up $608,995 for a third place finish - and a place in the history books as the first player to make the final table of both World Series Main Events. When November finally rolled around, Ivan used his aggressive style to get heads-up against Peter Eastgate. He eventually finished as runner-up, an incredible achievement that was worth a huge payday of $5,809,595.

He may have just missed out on achieving every poker player's dream, but Demidov is no doubt set for great things. Already sitting comfortably at the top of the all time money list for Russian players, you get the feeling that Ivan is just getting started. He is a member of Team PokerStars Pro and plays online using the screen name 'Ivan Demidov'.

SCOOP All Stakes - $30M guaranteed!

Get ready - because we’re giving ALL PokerStars players the chance to win big, with millions of dollars in cash prizes on the line. This is the Spring Championship of Online Poker - All Stakes, and it’s going to be massive. Here’s the deal: 22 events, two a day running from April 2-12, with a total guaranteed prize pool of $30,000,000. And if you think it’s only the high-rolling players that win the life-changing money in events like these, think again. Because this time round we’re laying down the challenge to all our players, no matter what stakes you play at. This is the biggest online poker tournament series anywhere online so far in 2009, and satellites are running now, including cash, FPP and Steps Sit & Go qualifiers available in a range of different buy-ins.

Each event will include three tournaments - one for low-stakes players, one for those who play medium-stakes, and finally one for those that play in our high-stakes games. The huge prize pool guarantees in each tournament mean that even low-stakes players have the chance to win big.

There will also be two High-Roller events, and the series ends with the Main Event on Sunday, April 12 - including a $1,000,000 guarantee for the lowest stake level tournament, and a $5,000,000 guarantee for the high-stakes tournament! See the schedule below for full event information.

You can also win prizes by scoring points on the SCOOP Player of the Series Leader Board - including 2010 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure and EPT Monte Carlo Grand Final prize packages. See the Leader Board page to find out more.

Daniel Negreanu

Having come of age in the pool halls of Toronto, poker superstar Daniel Negreanu originally had aspirations of being a professional snooker player. In this kind of environment, he was never too far away from a card game and eventually become intrigued enough to play himself. He moved to Las Vegas soon after and hasn’t looked back since.

In the space of just ten years, Daniel has achieved possibly the greatest live tournament results record ever seen. In 1998 at just 23, he became the youngest ever player at the time to win a World Series bracelet, after taking down the $2,000 Pot Limit Hold’em event. This was to be the start of an incredible run of success at the WSOP*, one that still shows no sign of stopping today. After a 2nd place finish in the $5,000 Omaha Hi/Lo event in 2002, he returned the following year to claim his 2nd bracelet in the $2,000 S.H.O.E. event. He won a third bracelet in 2004’s $2,000 Limit Hold’em event for $169,000, and had another good World Series run in 2008, cashing several times and winning a fourth bracelet in the $2,000 Limit Hold’em event for $204,863. A few months later, Daniel travelled to London for the World Series of Poker* Europe and made the final table of the £10,000 Main Event, picking up $395,024 for a 5th place finish.

But while the money he’d earned in World Series events up to this point had been impressive, it was nothing compared to the huge payouts he would soon start winning. By late 2004, WPT events were generating massive prize pools and Daniel wasted no time taking his share. In September, he won the Borgata Poker Open for an incredible $1,117,400 and followed it up just three months later with victory at the Five Diamond World Poker Classic, a win that earned Daniel another $1,770,218. There have also been several other WPT final table appearances, helping him to add another $1,443,013 to his bankroll. Daniel also won $755,525 after finishing 1st in a WSOP* Circuit event in 2005. In all, his total live earnings currently stand at over $10,000,000.

Daniel has also become a popular poker author, with millions of poker fans regularly reading his books, articles and blogs. He regularly appears on major televised poker shows, as both player and commentator. When he has spare time, he enjoys relaxing at home; shooting pool and playing video games with friends. He’s also an avid golfer and can often be found playing for high stakes with other top poker players.

Extremely popular amongst fans, Daniel is a true powerhouse in the poker world. He is a member of Team PokerStars Pro and plays online using the screen name ‘KidPoker’.


Watch Team PokerStars Pro Daniel Negreanu on PokerStars.tv