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The WSOP (World Series of Poker) is the major event of the poker calender.
Originating at Binion's Casino in 1970, it has run every year on an ever increasing scale.
Harrah's bought Binion's in 2004 and moved the event to their casino The Rio (from 2005 onwards). They also expanded the WSOP into other continents, and introduced WSOP Circuit events.
The WSOP is a series of poker tournaments of various formats and of various buy-in levels (ranging most recently from $1000 to $50,000). Winning any of these poker tournaments earns you not only lots of money, but also a very prestigious WSOP Bracelet. Winning several bracelets is often seen as the benchmark of success for professional poker players.
The players with the most bracelets are Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan, and Phil Ivey with 10 bracelets each, and Phil Hellmuth with 15 bracelets.
In 2007 the WSOP expanded to Europe, and has ran a tournament series once a year there ever since. That started in England, and was then moved to France. Phil Hellmuth is the only player to have won the Main Event in both the WSOP, and the WSOP Europe.
The main event of the WSOP is a $10,000 buy-in tounament of NL Holdem. In 2006 this event attracted over 8000 entries and the 1st Prize was $12,000,000. This remains the highest prize so far, followed by $10 million in 2014 and 2019.
Around $8 million to $9 million is the most common winning prize since 2007.
Chris Moneymaker's win in 2003 in attributed with starting a surge in growth of interest in the tournament series, with more and more players qualifying online.
Winners of the Main Event around the Moneymaker era :-
2007 :- Jerry Yang
2006 :- Jamie Gold (the biggest winning prize)
2005 :- Joseph Hachem (online qualifier through Poker Stars)
2004:- Greg Raymer (online qualifier through Poker Stars)
2003 :- Chris Moneymaker (online qualifier through Poker Stars)
2002 :- Robert Varkonyi
It has prodominately Americans who have been successful at the Main Event. But other nationalitities have won, such as Joe Hachem in 2005 (Australian), Peter Eastgate in 2008 (Danish), Jonathan Duhamel in 2010 (Canadian), Pius Heinz in 2011 (German), Martin Jacobsen in 2015 (Swedish), Hossein Ensan in 2019 (German), Damian Salas in 2020 (Argentinian)
Since 2004 a Player of the Series prize has been awarded, based on a points scheme over the whole tournaments series. Previous winners include: Daniel Negreanu (2 times), Allen Cunningham, Chris Ferguson, and Shaun Deeb.
Often the most expensive buy-in at the WSOP is the $50,000 HORSE event. This is almost exclusively entered by poker professionals (mainly due to the high buy-in). Winning this HORSE event is much coveted by poker pros. The 2006 winner was long time pro Chip Reese. The 2007 winner was long term pro Freddy Deeb. Since Chip Reese's death in December 2007, winning this event wins you the "Chip Reese Trophy".
In more recent times this $50K HORSE event has expanded to 8-Game, and was given the name "The Poker Players Championship". The winner still receives the Chip Reese Trophy.
Occasionally you see some super-high-roller events, such as "The Big One for One Drop" - this was a $1 million buy-in event to raise money for charity.