Above is a video that shows you how to paly No limit Texas Holdem. Its the game that has take the world by storm. But how did it get so popular?
1967- Joe Namath guarantees victory against the heavily favored Colts and comes through on it 1980- US Hockey defeats the powerful USSR in the semi finals of the hockey Olympics 2007- Boise State beats Oklahoma on a hook and latter play.
These are some of the great upsets in sports history. In 2003, an unknown account from Tennessee added his name to this historic list when he took the poker world by storm by defeating 838 of the best poker players in the world. In a game where experience is just as important if not more important then pure talent, a man who was playing his first live tournament won the biggest tournament in the world, proving the motto true that "anyone can win." That man is Chris Moneymaker.
The year that Moneymaker won the tournament had 839 players. From there the number of people went up and up.
List of Entries
2000- 512 entrants 1st place- $1.5 million
2001- 613 entrants 1st place- $1.5 million
2002- 631 entrants 1st place- $2 million
2003-839 entrants 1st place- 2.5 million
2004- 2576 entrants 1st place- $ 5 million
2005- 5619 entrants 1st place- $7.5 million
2006- 8773 entrants 1st place- $12 million
2007- 6358 entrants 1st place- $8.25 million
2008- 6844 entrants 1st place- $9.15 million
Moneymaker's Trend
Since Moneymaker's big win, the number of no name players skyrocketed, and ever since his win, an unknown amateur has won the big prize. In 2004, it was Greg Raymer, a patent attorney turned proffessional poker player after his big win. In 2005, it was Joe Hachem, a former chiropracter turned poker pro from Australia. In 2006, it was Jamie Gold, the most unlikely and arguably worst champion in recent memory, a former television director. In 2007, Jerry Yang, a former refugee from Thailand who won his entry into the torunament through a 225 dollar satellite, won the first prize. And in early November, 22 year old Peter Eastgate, a professional poker player from Denmark, became the youngest winner of the main event in world series history. To see how Moneymakers win affected online poker, click here.
Reason for Downfall in Entries
In 2006, poker's popularity was reaching an astronomical high with 8773 people forking up 10,000 dollars for an 87.73 million dollar prize pool. However, when the online poker world was hit by the UIEGA Act, as discussed in the online story, live poker was affected as well. Of the 8773 people in the main event, its safe to say that about 6000 of those people won a satellite, which is a smaller buy in tournament where the winner gets a seat. And most of these satellite winners came from online poker websites. In 2005, 1116 of the 5619 entries, about 20%, qualified from Pokerstars alone. So once several online sites shut their doors, and players became more weary, less players qualified for the main event, leading to a downgrade in entries.
Where do we go form here?
As far as live poker is concerned, the future is brighter then that of online poker. Regulations are not being enforced for live casinos, and players keep flocking in and giving their money away. As far as the World Series of Poker, its success and numbers are largely based on the online poker world, and its officials will be keeping an eye on these regulations. However, the bug has bit too many people for it to simply die as quickly as it rose. Poker will be around for a while.
No comments:
Post a Comment