E-WSOP

Playing World Series of Poker Online

By far WSOP has been the undisputed king of all poker series. Along with the main events and champs like Raymer, are thousands of players who get qualified to play in the richest poker tournament in the world. In 2002, only two people were eligible for the main event.

This year the 2008 main event seats were won by hundreds. What a difference six years (successful online poker rooms are one of the reasons) have brought.

But the experienced players are not the only ones in the main event who steal the limelight. Joe Hachem won the main event in 2005, and although he did not meet the requirements of the line for his place (he bought directly to the full $ 10,000), he was the third major event wins in a row and turned pro.

Over the last few years the table has been dominated by amateur players. This year, six of the ‘November Nine’ were from online poker rooms. This included six of seven and the top two chip leaders. It is likely that online poker players will dominate the game in future too.

From two to 2008 … and millions on the road

Poker qualifications have raked in tens of millions of dollars in profits in less than a decade. After the two players eligible in 2002, Chris Moneymaker was on the list of 33 players who qualified for the main event in 2003. Hand Elman was a final decision of the boiler and the first Internet qualifier to win the most important event in the process.

Media Frenzy and the national growing interest resulted in seeing 316 players being qualified for the main event of next year. That was a whopping 12% t of the level in 2004, and wound up cash for combined $ 10830900 after Greg Raymer.

Besides a slight decrease in 2007 (as a result of illegal Internet Gambling Enforcement Act), the number of players has increased each year to 2,008 seats, which qualified for this year (from 1063 that was used to playing in the proceedings).

In 2008, 130 players earned more than $ 9 million in online gambling. The fact that many players have access to the Internet is what helping this trend. From 2004 to 2008, there were an average of about four online players representing in the final list of major cases a year.

The trend is expected to increase as the craze catches on. Now you can find more and more people preferring to play online in order to qualify for the main event. This has done the game good as more number of people are able to participate which ensures that the game is healthy and there is lots of money coming in.

Don’t be surprised if next year’s WSOP is a bigger event than the one in 2008. It just keeps getting better and all the poker fans are loving it.