WSOP and WSOPE background
The World Series of Poker 2008 will be held in LasVegas in Summer 2008. The World Series of Poker is currently split between a US event, held at Harrah's Casino which has Ladbrokes Poker as online sponsor and a European event held in London which has Betfair Poker as its online sponsor. There are rumours - as yet unconfirmed - that an Asian and African World Series of Poker event will be added to the poker tournament calendar.
The US World Series of Poker takes place after the so called World Series of Poker Circuit which runs across Harrah's cardrooms in the USA. At WSOPC events players can qualify for a place in the WSOPC Tournament of Champions which is held in the day's preceding the World Series of Poker.
The WSOP 2008 is a series of poker tournaments with differing buy-ins which culminates in the WSOP Main Event, a $10,000 No-Limit Texas Hold'em event. The "Big Dance" as the WSOP Main Event is known has the largest prize pool for any poker tournament. In 2005 Joe Hachem (sponsored by Pokerstars) took home $7,500,000, in 2006 Jamie Gold (Bodog) took $12m and In 2007 Jerry Yang (Full Tilt Poker) took home $8.25m. The European WSOP or "WSOPE" was launched in 2007 and was won by Betfair sponsored player "Annette_15" Obrestad who took home $2m.
Online poker rooms are keen to help you qualify for the World Series of Poker 2008 and the World Series of Poker Europe 2008. Up until 2006 online poker room player sponsorship was welcomed by Harrah's but now they have allied themselves with two sponsors - Ladbrokes for the US WSOP 2008 and Betfair Poker for the WSOPE 2008. Both card rooms do not accept US players and have already started running tournaments where you could win the buy-in for the WSOP and WSOPE Main Events.
Other card rooms which have generated winners or placed players in the past are also running WSOP and WSOPE promotions. The way these rooms do this is to offer you a prize of the buy-in to the Main Events plus expenses. We know that Full Tilt Poker , Pokerstars , Absolute Poker and Bodog Poker all have plans to launch big promotions where you can qualify to the Big Dance online.