The Biggest Poker Championships in the World
Poker has been a popular game across Europe for hundreds of years. Early versions were played as parlour games amongst the upper classes in France, Spain, and Germany, before the game made its way to America. Brought by French settlers, modern poker developed in New Orleans in the early nineteenth century, where it evolved into the game of betting and bluffing that we all know and love today.
Early Tournaments
Poker was a popular form of entertainment on riverboats paddling up and down the Mississippi river and at the first casinos. But the games remained casual stand-alone events. It wasn’t until 1970 that attempts were made to pit players against each other in an organised way.
The first World Series of Poker tournament took place at the Horseshoe Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, in 1970. Organised by the owner, Benny Binion, it saw seven poker champions invited to compete in the first knockout championship. Each player paid an entry fee of $5000, with the total going to the winner in prize money: $35,000 was a good amount back then, and now it would be equivalent to almost $250,000!
Putting Poker on the Map
The winner of the first WSOP was Johnny Moss, not that anyone would have known. Media coverage at the time was non-existent – poker simply wasn’t a newsworthy event, even in Las Vegas. However, that all changed the following year when Moss was usurped as World Champion by ‘Amarillo Slim’ Preston. Preston made sure the papers knew all about his new title, and he created enough publicity for himself that the following year, in 1973, the tournament was televised. From then on, poker tournaments became big events which drew competitors from all over the United States, and eventually the world.
Modern Championships
Nowadays, poker tournaments are much more common, both in real life and online formats. They range in size from thousands of players to a select few invitationals, but what hasn’t changed is the excitement that draws players to take a seat. A few of these tournaments are arranged by organisations like WSOP and WPT as championships, pitting the very best of the best against each other for money, fame, and bragging rights. One of the many places to don your best suits. WSOP events winners gain exclusive bracelets, an award of distinction held in the highest regard by players. There are regional events in America, Europe and Asia, but players will travel all over the world to compete, rather than only focusing on their ‘local’ one.
Significant Events
For over 50 years the World Series of Poker Main Event has remained the largest poker championship in the world. It is held every year in Las Vegas, although no longer at the Horseshoe Casino. Although there are various tournaments running over 8 weeks, the Main Event is the most prestigious of them all. This $10,000 buy-in event saw more than 8,000 entrants in 2019, with Germany’s Hossein Ensan eventually taking home the $10 million prize for first place. But that’s not the largest ever prize pool – that title belongs to the 2012 WSOP Main Event, where American Antonio Esfandiari was awarded $18.3 million for finishing first.
The largest prize pool at a championship was the 2019 Triton Super High Roller Series - Triton Million for Charity, held in London in 2019. That’s not really a surprising statistic, considering the event had a £1,050,000 buy-in – the largest buy-in in poker history. The Triton Super High Roller series specialises in catering for big money games amongst non-professional players, and the Triton Million gave these players a chance to invite professionals to play alongside them. In an interesting twist, due to a prior agreement that saw winner Aaron Zhang split his winning, second place Bryn Kenney actually took home a larger pot!
Top Champions
While the WSOP Main Event is considered by many to be the championship of championships, there isn’t an official competition to determine the overall best poker player each year. This means that trying to rank professional poker players by their success can be tricky, because there are so many factors to consider – how many important poker championships they’ve placed in, overall earnings, and how long their career has lasted.
Undisputedly one of the best of all time has to be Phil Hellmuth. He might not top the lifetime earnings lists, but he has many major accolades to his name:
Hellmuth owns a whopping 15 WSOP bracelets, more than any other professional player.
He was the youngest player to win a WSOP Main Event when he claimed the title in 1989.
Hellmuth remains the only player to have won the WSOP Main Event in both America and Europe.
While Hellmuth dominates the WSOP, Darren Elias holds the record for the most WPT titles with his four. He has also made a record-breaking 12 final tables in WPT championship tournaments. Elias has pocketed $4 million just from live WPT events, and much more from online championships and cash games.
Top of the all-time poker winnings list is America’s Bryn Kenney. As of April 2021, he had pocketed $56 million, most of that from high roller tournaments. He won a WSOP bracelet in 2014 – albeit not at the Main Event – and has also win a number of other championships all over the world.
In Summary
The poker world encompasses a number of prestigious international competitions hosted in unique and wonderful places like Johannesburg, Macau, Manilla, London, and Las Vegas. While the WSOP Main Event continues in the same tradition in started in back in 1970, the organisers have since introduced dozens of other events happening in the same location, including Women’s championships and a variety of high- and low-stakes buy-ins. You can even find the best competitions broadcast on global television so that fans all over the world can follow the action.
