A Quick Glance at the Variety of Tournaments Run by the World Series of Poker

Throughout the years, the World Series of Poker has consistently stayed as one of the most prestigious poker spectacles all over the globe. It has been looked upon as the pioneer in featuring a series of huge poker tournaments on television. It was the first of its kind to showcase some of the biggest names in the world of poker going up against each other in some friendly and serious poker competition.

The World Series of Poker is probably the most successful big poker event in history. It runs almost 50 or more poker tournaments yearly. Here, poker players can get to play their most favorite poker variants in real tournament settings. This major event typically runs for as long as a month in the beautiful and elegant Las Vegas casino hotels in Nevada.

In almost each and every season of the World Series of Poker, all of the exciting tournaments that will run within a month or so would end in the highly regarded Main Event that is a $10,000 no-limit Texas Holdem game. The winner of this prestigious tournament will won millions of U.S. dollars together with the exclusive right to be called poker champion.

In the year 2004, there were a grand total of 2,576 participants who joined the Main Event tournament. Eventually, there were only two remaining players who ended up fighting for the title and the pot at the end of the final table. It was made up of satellite tournament qualifier Greg Raymer and tough poker contender David Williams. Only one of them survived and it was Raymer who took home the pot which amounted to $5 million.

This marked the second straight year that a satellite tournament qualifier ended up as champion of the tour. The previous year, it was Chris Moneymaker who won the Main Event. In 2005, it was Joe Hachem's turn to emerge as champion of the Main Event, this time taking home the pot that is valued at $7.5 million. He outlasted Steve Dannenmann in one grueling poker contest.

In 2006, Jamie Gold became the highest winning player in the World Series of Poker after bagging the $12 million-pot from the Main Event. He outlasted fellow tough tournament contender Paul Wasicka for the win. In the most recent installment of the event, it was Jerry Yang who emerged as 2007 World Series of Poker champion after finishing off fellow Main Event finalist Tuan Lam. The pot was priced at $8,250,000.