November Nine - A Strange Way to Run a World Championship

The World Series of Poker is recognized as the World Championship of Poker. It brings together the best poker players from countries all around the world to compete in all the variations of Texas Hold'em Poker. But it is not your ordinary championship. It is, in fact, quite unique.

A Little Bit of World Series of Poker History

There isn't a poker player alive who isn't glued to his or her seat when the World Series of Poker (WSOP) is on. In fact, there seems to be very few alive who don't go to Las Vegas to enter in the main event. Almost 9,000 poker players entered the main event, making this more of a donkey-fest than an actual testament to one's skill-set.

But nevertheless, professional players such as Chris "Jesus" Ferguson, Phil Hellmuth, Johnny Chan, and many more pros will test their grit and determination against a field of over 8,000 players who seemingly stay in hands just to catch a river card. Not taking anything away from an amateur player, but percentages can be extremely cruel. The last time a "pro" won the WSOP was in 2001 when Carlos Mortensen took down the prize.

The game of poker wasn't played above the table with yelling and flailing limbs in the beginning of WSOP history. In fact, one of the great players at time, such as Johnny Moss, would have quickly put a stop to any insurrection or untimely outbursts. Poker has been played for centuries now, and has ended in injury or death for many cheaters, big-talkers, and owners of outlandish personalities. Texas Hold 'Em hasn't been around quite as long. But once upon a time, it was a highly respected game.

The first World Series of Poker began as a small gathering between some great poker players who also happened to be friends. It was organized by Jack Binion, who owned the Horseshoe in Las Vegas at the time. It was 1970, and Hold 'Em wasn't a very popular game. There weren't even 10 players in the tournament, but the men who played are forever a part of poker lure.

Among the greats in the game were Doyle Brunson, Amarillo Slim, and Johnny Moss. Moss was ultimately voted as the best player and won the inaugural WSOP. In 1971, Moss won the winner-take-all event, beating the entire field. The mid-70s is when the WSOP started to pick up steam. Doyle Brunson won his back-to-back titles in 1976-77, holding the now famous 10 2.

More side events were put in during the 1980s, including limit HE, Stud, and H.O.R.S.E NBC began their coverage of the event in 1981 as Stu Ungar was making his mark on the poker world. He took back-to-back titles in 1980-81. The WSOP continued to flourish throughout the 80s, and was at an all-time high in popularity when Johnny Chan took back-to-back titles in 1987-88. He also made it to a final table for a third consecutive year, only to lose to a 24-year-old Phil Hellmuth and finish 2nd overall.

By 1991, the exposure had increased along with the prize pool. The first-place finisher was taking home over a million dollars. In 1997, Stu Ungar appeared from a long hiatus to take the title down, making him the only player in history to earn 3 WSOP Main Event titles. In 2000, Chris Ferguson took the title away from T.J. Cloutier, and Mortensen won it a year later. Since then, the field has been completely dominated by amateurs. The WSOP is now more of a lottery than a poker tournament. For $10,000, you can buy your ticket.

Breakfast Topic: BlizzCon Day 1 anticipation

BlizzCon 2010 is finally here and the schedule's pretty packed for opening day. If you lucked out on a BlizzCon ticket (and had the resources to make it out to Anaheim), you might be hard-pressed to choose which panel to attend, given that there are two stages where panels happen simultaneously. On top of that, the world's best StarCraft II and World of Warcraft arena players duke it out on separate areas, as well.

BlizzCon this Friday debut, "Diablo 3" professional package first to open

BlizzCon Blizzard's annual carnival is about to debut on Friday morning, when the "Diablo 3" will be the first to show the game, I believe that all players must support the Diablo series, Blizzard released are quite looking forward to the fifth career true face, and more detailed description of the game within the system.【Open】 pre-empt some professional package

Blizzard is more than three weeks in the official preview of Facebook photos public career suits, while the production team has been released by the game related information, including:

● the future will no longer be invisible equipment (powerful but not repair the equipment.)
● The main color will be equipped with dyeing system through a custom color.
● role in the level of about 20 or so will be able to complete the Normal difficulty.
● Each "armor" equipment in each of the different career when a character looks will be different.

BlizzCon program schedule

RPG role-playing game "New Vegas Fallout"and"Fallout 3"

RPG role-playing game, is a very popular game by the type of player this month in the Xbox360 platform has two RPG masterpiece will be listed one after another


"New Vegas Fallout" inherited "Fallout 3" game the system, with which the origin of this series quite developed by Obsidian Entertainment, the same as for the course in the world after nuclear war, expand the high degree of freedom Revelation adventure.

In "Fallout" of the world, players will visit many of the crumbling city, encounter many nuclear biological change, the "new Vegas Fallout" offers over "Fallout 3" twice the number of weapons , and there are new weapons configuration system allows players to transform their weapons, taking advantage of these forces to survive it!

What do you want to the way in this world after nuclear war to survive it? "Fallout" in the world without any restrictions, everything depends on their moral choices! "New Fallout Vegas"

If the "Fable" theme is "you", "Fable 2" is the theme of "you and your friends", then "Fable 3" want to show that "you and your kingdom." "Fable 3" The story starts in "Fable 2" five years later, the Kingdom of Albion into the industrial revolution, but also faced the turmoil of revolution is about to set off, players will be able to "Fable 3 "set off a revolution, then ruled the Kingdom, which will face a lot into the right and moral choices, and deeply influenced the development of the whole world.

"Fable 3" in addition to the theme of the expansion, strengthening of all the details, but also for the co-player mode to do a lot of strengthening, in the "Fable 3" cooperative mode, each player will have a separate camera add others, whether through the game LIVE or invite others into their own world, you can perform common tasks, and retain their role identity.