World Series of Poker

The World Series of Poker (WSOP) is the most important set of poker tournaments across the world. Tom Morehead introduced the World Series of Poker in 1970. It took place with seven players initially. Johnny Moss was awarded a silver cup for winning the game and was considered the first World Champion of Poker. Thereafter, all the winners of the WSOP were awarded with cash prizes. It is expected that in the year 2006, around 42 events shall be added to the current list of events including Texas Hold ’Em, Omaha Hold ‘Em, and Seven-card stud. Events like H.O.R.S.E. and S.H.O.E, which were played earlier, shall also be added. H.O.R.S.E. consists of plays such as Hold ‘Em, Omaha, Razz, Seven-card stud, and seven-card stud eight or better. H.O.R.S.E. is normally played with high stakes at casinos. It was last played in the year 2004. S.H.O.E. consists of plays such as Stud, Holdem, Omaha and Eight or Better. It was earlier played along with Chinese poker.

Marketing of the WSOP

As a world famous event, the WSOP is sponsored by various corporate. Its products are all licensed. The WSOP pay fees in order to become an official sponsor and a licensee and thereby promote their events. It major corporate sponsors are Harrah’s Properties, ESPN, “Milwaukee’s Best” brand of beers, Pepsi’s SoBe Adreneline Rush Energy Drink, Card Player magazine, GlaxoSmithKline’s Levitra erectile medicine, and Helene Curtis’s Degree brand of deodorant. As far as its licensees are concerned, it comprise Activision that includes video games such as Nintendo’s GameCube, Sony’s Playstation 2, Microsoft’s Xbox, and companies that manufacture chip sets, handheld games, playing cards, t-shirts, caps, and so on. Harrah’s make about a million dollars from the collection of fees and licensees.

2006 World Series of Poker

In the year 2006, the World Series of Poker was held in Las Vegas. The satellite events started off from June 25, and from June 26 the regular plays started taking place. On June 28-29, the Employee event and the Tournament of Champions took place. The Tournament of Champions is an invitational freeroll poker event, which was started on September 1, 2004. Earlier the invitations were made to only high society people and recognized people in the poker world. These days, it is applicable to all those who are able to qualify any of the events of the WSOP. However, it will not take any qualifier from the previous year’s final table.

All events took place at the Rio All, Suite Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas, Nevada. Approximately six days were kept aside for the first two rounds of the play. The event also included H.O.R.S.E. and S.H.O.E., which were played earlier. The cash prize for the main event was $10 million. This was the costliest prize given so far in any sports event in history.