The World Series of Poker (WSOP) is a series of poker tournaments held annually in Paradise, Nevada and, since 2004, sponsored by Caesars Entertainment. It dates its origins to 1970, when Benny Binion invited seven of the best-known poker players to the Horseshoe Casino for a single tournament, with a set start and stop time, and a winner determined by a secret ballot of the seven players.
Texas hold 'em is one of the most popular variants of the card game of poker. Two cards, known as hole cards, are dealt face down to each player, and then five community cards are dealt face up in three stages. The stages consist of a series of three cards, later an additional single card, and a final card. Each player seeks the best five card poker hand from any combination of the seven cards; the five community cards and their two hole cards. Players have betting options to check, call, raise, or fold. Rounds of betting take place before the flop is dealt and after each subsequent deal. The player who has the best hand and has not folded by the end of all betting rounds wins all of the money bet for the hand, known as the pot. In certain situations, a "split-pot" or "tie" can occur when two players have hands of equivalent value. This is also called a "chop-pot". Texas hold 'em is also the H game featured in HORSE and in HOSE.
Doyle Frank Brunson was an American poker player who played professionally for over 50 years. He was a two-time World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event champion, a Poker Hall of Fame inductee, and the author of several books on poker.
Arnold Rothstein, nicknamed "The Brain", was an American racketeer, crime boss, businessman, and gambler who became a kingpin of the Jewish mob in New York City. Rothstein was widely reputed to have organized corruption in professional athletics, including conspiring to fix the 1919 World Series. He was also a mentor of future crime bosses Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky, Frank Costello, Bugsy Siegel and numerous others.
Phillip Dennis Ivey Jr. is an American professional poker player who has won ten World Series of Poker bracelets, one World Poker Tour title, and appeared at nine World Poker Tour final tables. Ivey is regarded by numerous poker observers and contemporaries as the best all-around player in the world. In 2017, he was elected to the Poker Hall of Fame.
Erik Seidel is an American professional poker player from Las Vegas, Nevada, who has won nine World Series of Poker bracelets and a World Poker Tour title. In 2010, he was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame.
Lyle Arnold Berman is an American professional poker player and business executive.
Johnny Moss was a gambler and professional poker player. He was the first winner of the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event, at the time a cash game event in which he was awarded the title by the vote of his peers in 1970. He also twice won the current tournament format of the WSOP Main Event in 1971 and 1974. He was one of the charter inductees into the Poker Hall of Fame in 1979.
Lester Ben Binion, better known as Benny Binion, was an American career criminal who established illegal gambling operations in the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, area. In 1931, Binion was convicted of shooting and killing a rum-runner, Frank Bolding. In the 1940s he relocated to Nevada, where gambling was legal, and opened the successful Binion's Horseshoe casino in downtown Las Vegas.
Barry Greenstein is an American professional poker player and former mathematics postgraduate student. He has won a number of major events, including three at the World Series of Poker and two on the World Poker Tour. Greenstein donates his profit from tournament winnings to charities, primarily Children Incorporated, earning him the nickname "the Robin Hood of poker". He was elected into the Poker Hall of Fame in 2011.
Thomas K. McEvoy is a professional poker player, author and member of the Poker Hall of Fame, 2013 inductee. He is best known for winning the 1983 World Series of Poker Main Event.
The 2005 World Series of Poker opened play on June 2, continuing through the Main Event No Limit World Championship starting on July 7. The conclusion of the Main Event on July 15 marked the close of play, and the largest prize in sports and/or television history at the time ($7,500,000) was awarded to the winner. ESPN's broadcast began July 19th with coverage of WSOP Circuit Tournaments, and coverage of the Main Event began October 11th and ended November 15th.
Ivo Donev is a Bulgarian, with Austrian passport, who is a professional chess and poker player.
James "Jim" McManus is an American teacher, writer and poker player living in Kenilworth, Illinois. He is a professor in the Master of Fine Arts program for writers at the Art Institute of Chicago.
BARGE, the Big August Rec.Gambling Excursion, is a yearly convention held in Las Vegas during the summer, usually a weekend in late July or the first weekend of August. It consists of a series of tournaments both of poker and other gambling games, as well as a banquet and a host of informal social and gambling activities organized by attendees. Some of the well-known poker players who have participated either as speakers or players in the no limit holdem tournament include: Howard Lederer, Chris Ferguson, Phil Hellmuth Jr, Greg Raymer, Mason Malmuth, David Sklansky, Mike Caro, Matt Matros, Linda Johnson, Phil Gordon, Paul Phillips, Andy Bloch, William Chen, Doyle Brunson and many others.
Lonnie Theodore Binion, or Ted Binion, was an American gambling executive and one of the sons of Las Vegas casino magnate Benny Binion, owner of Binion's Horseshoe. Binion's girlfriend Sandra Murphy and her lover Rick Tabish were initially charged and convicted in Binion's 1998 death, but they were later granted a new trial and acquitted on the murder charges.
Binion's Gambling Hall & Hotel, formerly Binion's Horseshoe, is a casino on Fremont Street along the Fremont Street Experience mall in Downtown Las Vegas, Nevada. It is owned by TLC Casino Enterprises. The casino is named for its founder, Benny Binion, whose family ran it from its founding in 1951 until 2004. The hotel, which had 366 rooms, closed in 2009. TLC reopened 81 of the rooms as a boutique hotel called Hotel Apache in July 2019.
Barny M. P. Boatman is an English professional poker player and the oldest member of the poker-playing foursome known as The Hendon Mob. He is the older brother of Ross Boatman, and resides in Archway.
Carol Diane Fuchs is an entertainment attorney, producer, and World Series of Poker bracelet winner.
Bob Feduniak is an American poker player from Las Vegas, Nevada.
