Posts Tagged ‘Wsop’

WSOP: The World Series Of Poker

The world series of poker is the ultimate challenge out there for both internet and real poker rooms players. The truth is that if you enter the WSOP you stand a chance to win lots and lots of money. But that is not the only reason. Just the fact that you made it there is a huge realization both for you as a player and for you as a person. If you want to really be a part of the poker world then WSOP is the place to start. With all the media attention you will be getting and with all the famous people that are going to be around you, you will get a chance to real show your skills and to improve them greatly since you will be surrounded only by the best of the best. Being in the heart of all these events and agitation is a quite exciting and fun thing to do in your poker career.

Nowadays, because of the satellite tournaments that are played in order to gain entrance to the WSOP, you can easily enter the world series of poker with a limited bankroll. The entrance fee for some of these tournaments can be as low as $40 and with that kind of money you can get to play in the end for over $2.000.000. (the tax required to enter the WSOP can be paid from the money won in the qualifying satellite tournament, so you will really only invest $40).

Still, when looking at it mathematically we realize that even entering the WSOP is a very lucky situation and that a many people lose a lot of money trying to enter it and even when they do they just lose instantly their $10.000 bankroll.

The WSOP is opened for every person over 21 years old and it can be won even by a skilled player no one has heard about that comes from a satellite tournament. This happened in 2003 when such a player won about $2,500,000 investing just the $ 40 entrance fee to the satellite tournament.

Young talents arise every year and ore and more players take part in the WSOP as years pass. You have a chance of winning even this great tournament if you have studied enough, if you learn every day new things and practice every day your strategies and approaches and if you manage to keep an overall good attitude so you can play your best hands and strategies.

WSOP and Poker Tournaments

The World Series of Poker first started in 1970 at Binion’s Casino in Las Vegas and today is considered the most prestige’s poker tournament held any where in the world. In the last few years the field of players has been enormous in number and the prize money has been several million dollars to the winner of the tournament. They have been showing the poker tournaments on TV and the camera view of what each player is holding has helped to gain a huge TV audience. Three factors have attracted the large number of players to tournament poker. The many televised tournaments that are now shown on TV are one factor of the growth. Another factor is the many satellite tournaments where a player can pay a small entry fee and win the entry into the tournaments. The final factor is the popularity of Internet poker and the many tournaments that offered daily at these online poker casinos, there are literally thousands of them to choose from. This has allowed many young players to gain experience and they now make the final table at many tournaments that are shown on TV.

There is a significant difference between tournament poker and cash game poker. When you lose all of your chips in a cash game, you can purchase more. In a tournament when your stack is gone, you are over in that tournament. So the secret is to maintain your chip total at a good level and try to make the final table where the prize money is the highest. When the blinds are low, the player can take some flyers with suited connectors and lower pairs. When the blinds get really big, the better hands may not come and you need to be more aggressive or you will be blinded out of the tournament. It is easier said than done to wait for really concrete starting hands in tournament play. Aggression is rewarded and the art of the bluff is a big part of the way the game is played. Calling significant raises in tournaments must be done only when you have a solid hand or have many outs that can give you a winning hand. Gambling early on in the tournament on marginal hands is a sure way to get eliminated from the tournament. Of course if the cards are running over you, then you can play almost any two cards in Holdem. For new players the budget tournaments that are held daily on virtually all the sites are a superb place to learn to play tournaments.

The World Series of Poker Appears It’s Thriving, But Look Below The Surface.

The World Series Of Poker had yet another record breaking year and stays the industry standard, In 2011, there were a record 75,672 entries when compared to last year’s record of 72,966. This year was up 3.7 percent of last year. Also, the prize pool set a record in 2011 with a whooping $191,999,010 dollars compared to last year’s previous high of $187,109,850. This was also a boost of 2.6 percent. These numbers cause you to think everything is great within the poker world.

If you take a look a little deeper you can see most predictions of the turn out for this years tournament were deeply understated. The truth is they broke records as mentioned above. So Black Friday did not have the impact some thought it might. Despite thousands of players angry after three of the four sites failed to reimburse them even after the government cleared the way to do so. Many thought players might not be able to afford WSOP buy-ins because of the online poker crackdown. We believe the predictions were a year early. With sponsorship down and much less fish playing online poker these days the sharks will not make much cash for buy ins. It could just have not been long enough for the losses to kick in.

The tv portion of the tournament has definitely taken a commercial hit. It’s no real shock because the owners of these sites were huge sponsors specifically Poker Stars and Full Tilt Poker. If you have been watching the tournament on television you will see their logos are not on the players either. Even the UFC events don’t have these sponsors anymore. If ratings are down this year they can lose even more sponsors. One good thing is Godaddy has signed on this year to be a sponsor and perhaps that is a good sign.

The bottom line is next year will be the year to worry about. If poker players cant find online poker sites that accept players from the US, then they could lose interest and take up different hobbies. Even if their desire is to play, but there’s no place online, they may get frustrated. In either case the lack of US poker Sites is a concern and the fact these players haven’t had there funds returned to them is another. The environment over the next year can really get bad.

So how should we fix it and keep the best tournament in the world? That will not be an easy one. Here are several thoughts. First, if the government is prosecuting the operators of these poker websites criminally, then they should also pursue the funds being returned to the players just as vigorously. The poker players were not breaking any laws and their funds should be returned. Second, there needs to be a law that legalizes online poker at the minimum if not all of gambling. The law makers should not play politics with this situation. It’s about time to get past the Indian gaming lobby and help the players. Until we get US poker sites again the game is in trouble and so is the WSOP.

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