Top 10 Most Interesting Facts About the WSOP Tournament
Recently updated on July 11th, 2023
The World Series of Poker (WSOP) is the Met Gala of all poker tournaments. The tournament gathers professional poker players from all around the world to compete for the ultimate title of WSOP Champ. But, new poker players also get the opportunity to mingle with the big guns as it’s open for participation for every kind of player.
We decided to look into the tournament to bring you some of the most interesting WSOP facts. Some of these facts are expected, while others are surprising. It’s a good read nonetheless.
Interesting About the WSOP Tournament
Here’s a rundown of 10 WSOP facts that you might or might not know.
- The start of the WSOP tournament dates back to the early 1990s when the first-ever C$1 million cash prize was won by a lucky and enduring poker player named Brad Daugherty. Cash prizes for the tournament have increased significantly since then, and many other winners came after Brad.
- The biggest ever WSOP poker event was held in 2006. The event attracted a whopping 8 773 poker hopefuls. The 2010 WSOP event comes a close second as It attracted around 7 319 poker hopefuls.
- A man named Howard Andre takes the title of most frequent WSOP player having participated in 41 WSOP tournaments from 1974 up until his last game in 2014. His participation was consecutive throughout the years, and he never missed a tournament.
- The story of Kevin Boudreau is a heartfelt one. Kevin was an avid poker player who suffered a terrible brain injury that prevented him from participating in WSOP events until he was fully recovered. But, he beat the odds and recovered well within two years, and returned to play again. His journey to recovery was documented and is super inspiring to watch.
- Tony Cousineau’s WSOP poker journey is a series of unfortunate events. He goes down in history as the man who got close but never succeeded in bagging a gold bracelet. He had 74 failed attempts at securing a gold bracelet.
- A man named Maurice Hawkins holds the most circuit rings won in a WSOP event. He has 10 of them, and nobody has been able to beat him yet.
- Hal Fowler is proof that beginners’ luck does exist. Hal, an amateur to poker at the time, beat 54 of his experienced competitors and won the overall prize back in the late 1970s. Impressive!
- The WSOP hit a bit of a rough patch between 1999 and 2002 when the event was boycotted by top competing players at the time. The boycotting came after a heated misunderstanding happened between the organizing partners, which was eventually resolved.
- One of the commentators from the 2002 WSOP event got himself in a tight spot when he pledged to shave off all his hair if a player he had no faith in won the overall prize. To everyone’s surprise, the underdog won, and the commentator stuck to his word by shaving off his hair. There were cameras to film it and all.
- The Discovery Channel was the official broadcaster of the WSOP tournament from 1999 until 2001. The Discovery Channel doesn’t usually cover television like a poker tournament, but surprisingly it did then.
Overview
Well, there you have it, our top 10 most interesting WSOP facts. Hope you found them to be interesting too! We have a number of poker guides for those who would like to know more about the game. You can visit our online poker page as a start and navigate your way through.
