World Series of Poker’s Birthday
July 9, 2009
It doesn’t seem like it was that long ago that the World Series of Poker
was something that was played in back alleys and back rooms of bars. Poker
playing was something that was considered seedy and illegal in many areas,
and it has gone from that to becoming the best known poker event in the
world. The World Series of Poker is pleased to be celebrating 40 years of
poker playing and they could not be more thrilled or surprised as to where
they ended up.
This year’s main event has professional poker players like Daniel Negreanu,
Gus Hansen, Erik Seidel, Johnny Chan, Peter Eastgate, Scotty Nguyen, and
Chris “Jesus” Ferguson. It also has celebrities like Matt Damon and Ben
Affleck, Ray Romano, James Woods, Jason Alexander, and Tobey Maguire. Then
there are the sports and news celebrities such as Boris Becker and Lennox
Lewis – and Montel Williams to round out the pack.
The variety of these names along shows how far poker playing has come in the
past forty years. Many of these people have only come to it lately, but
there are some that have been following it the entire time it has been
running as best as they could. That following has not only gotten bigger but
it has gotten easier as the spectators can now turn on their television and
watch some of the best poker players in the world go at it.
Doyle Brunson still remembers when he quit back in 1972. He claimed that he
was sick, but really he just didn’t want anyone to know that he was a
professional poker player. He says back in those days if you played poker
for a living you were a “second class citizen” so he disappeared when the
cameras showed up. Now obviously that is not the case, but that shows you
how far the game has come.
