WSOP is the world’s most known poker tournament, which is held every year at the “Bellagio” Las Vegas casino. Even though the event is not Canadian, plenty of Canadian poker players aim to qualify, and some have even been quite successful. WSOP’s first tournament was held in 1970, which was actually a highly regarded event in which six of the world’s best and most-known players were invited to participate in an elite competition. The event grew slowly initially. As the years went by, the number of participants grew to 52. In 1980, the satellite events were presented, allowing people to win in their own way in different occasions. In 1987, there were already 2,100 participants in the whole series, climbing to 8,773 in 2006. The first WSOP poker tournament was a timed singles tournament, where the winner was chosen by a secret raffle. In 1973, the “Five Stud” card game was added to the second event, and as of 2009, the WSOP has consisted of 57 events. While events traditionally took place over one or more consecutive days during the series in June and July, in 2008, the main event final table was delayed until November. The winner of each event receives a World Series of Poker bracelet and a monetary prize based on the number of entrants and buy-in amounts. Since 1976, a bracelet has been awarded to the winner of every event at the annual WSOP. One can say that the game has gathered momentum as a result of the WSOP, the largest poker tournament of its kind, and the Texas Hold’em game has also become one of the most desirable and admired games among the Canadian gambling crowd.

When Benny Binion started WSOP Poker in 1970, he was a casino owner with a great sense of marketing. He wanted to get more people into the “Horseshoe” casino in Las Vegas, so he invited some of the best poker players in the world to come and play to see who really was the best. The event grew from there and became the show that we Canadians all know and love today. But did the recent decision of switching to automatic tables by the WSOP owners ruin or improve the image of WSOP? What are loyal fans thinking and saying about this major change? The Harrah’s Entertainment casino corporation, which brought Horseshoe into the WSOP ownership, has recently made a deal with PokerTech, makers of automatic poker tables. These tables have placed the players in front of touch screens run by a computer with artificial intelligence – a combination between live and video poker. Harrah’s had even ordered a number of tables with the WSOP branding. But the question is, are they planning to use them in the current event? And what does this mean about the future for Canadian poker tournaments? Will this decision change every level of competition? At this point, it is yet to be known, but it seems that the answer is ‘no’. It all relates to how the players will play and communicate with one another and, of course, with the dealer as well. Handling the chips, looking at the cards, these are all part of the poker game and if that is gone, then there is no trace left of the familiar good old poker game.