At war with luck

摘要

In 1969 Benny Binion, owner of the Horseshoe Casino in Las Vegas, attended the Texas Gamblers' Reunion in Reno, where he played high-stakes poker for several days. His opponents were a group of men-and men only-with the sort of Run-yonesque names endemic in poker's history and lore: Chill, Puggy, Minnesota Fats, Texas Dolly. The following year Mr Binion invited the high-rollers to his casino. After a few days the players elected Johnny Moss the best of their number and awarded him a silver cup. Thus was the World Series of Poker (wsop) humbly begun.rnThe next year it evolved into a freeze-out game with a $5,000 buy-in, meaning that once a player lost his $5,000 stake, he could not buy his way back in. In 2006-the wsop's peak year-8,773 entrants competed in 45 separate tournaments featuring most of the main varieties of poker for over $100m in prize money.