The World Series of Poker (WSOP) is a series of poker tournaments held annually in Las Vegas and, since 2004, sponsored by Caesars Entertainment Corporation. 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.
A poker tournament is a tournament where players compete by playing poker. It can feature as few as two players playing on a single table, and as many as tens of thousands of players playing on thousands of tables. The winner of the tournament is usually the person who wins every poker chip in the game and the others are awarded places based on the time of their elimination. To facilitate this, in most tournaments, blinds rise over the duration of the tournament. Unlike in a ring game, a player's chips in a tournament cannot be cashed out for money and serve only to determine the player's placing.
Phillip Jerome Hellmuth Jr. is an American professional poker player who has won a record fifteen World Series of Poker bracelets. He is the winner of the Main Event of the 1989 World Series of Poker (WSOP) and the Main Event of the 2012 World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE), and he is a 2007 inductee of the WSOP's Poker Hall of Fame. Hellmuth is also known for his temperamental "poker brat" personality.
The World Poker Tour (WPT) is an internationally televised gaming and entertainment brand. Since 2002, the World Poker Tour has operated a series of international poker tournaments and associated television series broadcasting playdown and the final table of each tournament.
Juan Carlos Mortensen is an Ecuadorian professional poker player of Danish descent and the only South American Main Event winner of the World Series of Poker. Mortensen is known for his loose play, bluffing tactics, and interesting chip-stacking style.
James Gary Bechtel is an American cotton farmer and poker player, now based in Gilbert, Arizona. He is best known for winning the 1993 Main Event at the World Series of Poker (WSOP). At the time of his WSOP win, he lived in Coolidge, Arizona.
Late Night Poker is a British television series that helped popularize poker in the 2000s. It used "under the table" cameras that enabled the viewer to see each player's cards.
Joseph Hachem is a Lebanese Australian professional poker player known for being the first Australian to win the World Series of Poker main event which earned him $7.5 million, then a record for all-time biggest tournament prize.
The Poker Superstars Invitational Tournament was a series of no limit Texas hold 'em poker tournaments. The first season is available on NTSC DVD. It airs on Fox Sports Net in the United States, Rogers Sportsnet in Canada and Ftn in the United Kingdom.
J. C. Tran is a Vietnamese-American professional poker player, based in Sacramento, California.
World Tavern Poker is the largest free-to-play bar poker league in the United States. As of March of 2019, nearly 400 taverns, bars, and restaurants across the United States host the popular weekly or twice-weekly tournament-format games.
Dario Minieri is an Italian professional poker player from Rome, Italy who won a bracelet at the 2008 World Series of Poker at the age of 23, is a member of team PokerStars, is an online poker player who was the first person to collect enough Frequent Player Points to buy an automobile with them, and is a three-time European Poker Tour final tablist.
The Paddy Power Poker Irish Winter Festival of Poker is an annual poker festival that takes place in Dublin, Ireland. First organised in 2001, the festival is headlined by the Irish Masters main event, a Texas hold'em tournament, and typically takes place over the three days of the October bank holiday weekend.
Peter Eastgate is a poker player from Denmark, best known as the winner of the Main Event at the 2008 World Series of Poker. At the time, he became the youngest player ever to win the event. He was subsequently surpassed by Joe Cada in 2009.
The Asian Poker Tour (APT) was founded in 2008. To date, the APT has staged more than 80 major events and numerous smaller tournaments mainly in the Asia-Pacific Region. The tour has stopped at Philippines, Macau, South Korea, Cambodia, Vietnam, India, Australia, London, New Caledonia and Cambodia. APT events combined have generated over USD 30 Million in prize money all awarded to players.
World Series of Backgammon (WSOB) is a major televised live tour. The television shows capture the match action, jeopardy and background around some of the world’s largest backgammon tournaments, and have broadcast throughout Europe on Eurosport 1 and 2 whilst being distributed worldwide by ESPN International.
Melanie Weisner is an American professional poker player. She is also known by her PokerStars online screen name Callisto 5.
The Partouche Poker Tour (PPT) was a series of poker tournaments held at casinos owned and operated by the Partouche group in France. The tour operated on a three-tiered structure, with two levels of satellites eventually feeding into the Main Event held at the Palm Beach casino in Cannes.
Shaun Frank Deeb is an American professional poker player from Troy, New York. He has three World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) player of the year titles and four World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelets.
The Global Poker Index (GPI) is a leaderboard index that ranks over 450,000 live tournament poker players in the world. The GPI poker rankings are updated on a weekly basis. Players’ performances are assessed by their finishing positions in poker tournaments occurring over six periods of six months.
