It is that time of the year again! The annual World Series of Poker is back. The 2009 tournament takes place from Wednesday, May 27th to Wednesday, July 15th in the Rio Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas.
Celebrating its 40th anniversary, the WSOP is undoubtedly, the largest and most important poker tournament today. The WSOP hosts the best poker players in the world, all coveting the WSOP bracelets, granted to the winner of each of the 57 events of the tournament. Let’s not forget the substantial monetary prizes, that may amount in tens, or hundreds of thousands of dollars and rise up to millions. With last year’s main event prize rising to over 9 million dollars.
This year the WSOP is sure to be an action packed tournament with well known names like: John Phan (the razor), Phil Ivey, David Singer and of course, last years big winner - Peter Eastgate and runner up – Ivan Demidov.
Poker-on-line will be there to cover all major events of the tournament and ensure you will be up-to-date with all happenings. We will show you the biggest winners, and yes, the biggest losers in the spectacular event. Be sure to follow our 2009 40th annual World Series of Poker coverage.
Leading Names Participation
As in every year, the 40th annual WSOP attracts the big poker names, all coveting the golden bracelets and multi million dollar prizes. Every player has his own method and criteria for selecting which and how many events to participate. Here are some of the big players we will see around the poker tables and their strategy for making the most out of this exciting event, that for many represents the peak of their year.
Although poker legend Doyle Brunson showed up to the tournament, we will not be seeing a lot of him this year. “I am going to play some, but I am going to be very selective…” states the 76 year old, who won his first WSOP main event in 1976, in an ESPN interview.
A completely different approach is presented by Peter Eastgate, who holds, since his big Main Event win in 2008 the title of the youngest WSOP Main Event champion. He plans to attend “as many Hold’em events as possible, with the main focus on the bigger buying events”.Bracelet winner Jeffrey Lisandro holds the same approach as Eastgate. I am going to play as many events as I can. I will definitely play the 10,000 dollar stud event.”
Another bracelet winner Mike Gracz picked up around 20 events, the majority of which are no limits events. “I just don’t Want to get burnt up by the end of this summer” Gracz explains his decision to participate only in under half of the events of the WSOP.
So some will be seen in more events, other will be very strict in their selection, but we are sure to see them all (or atleast most of them) in the new and exciting $40K no-limit hold 'em event, honoring the SWOP 40th anniversary and of course in the WSOP main event.
