1970 World Series of Poker - Recap

The 1970 World Series of Poker was hosted at the Binion’s Horseshoe and it was the first edition of the event. It was very different from the WSOP we know today. Jack Binion invited the best poker players in America to come to Las Vegas and determine who the best player was through competition. Binion got the idea from a similar event hosted the year before in Reno, Nevada called the Texas Gamblers Reunion. Binion hoped to recreate the publicity produced by the infamous head’s-up match between Johnny Moss and Nick “The Greek” Dandalos in 1951. The lineup included Johnny Moss, Doyle Brunson, Puggy Pearson, Jack Straus, Sailor Roberts, Amarillo Slim Preston, Bill Boyd, Titanic Thompson, Jimmy Casella, Curtis “Iron Man” Skinner, Crandell Addington, and twenty-six other players. They played a number of card games over the next three days, including five-card stud and draw, seven-card stud, seven-card stud hi-lo, deuce-to-seven and ace-to-five lowball, razz, and Texas Hold’em. Players rotated in and out of the mixed cash game when they became too tired to continue.

The players gathered in the Sombrero Room at Binion’s Horseshoe on the last night of play and voted on awards in a number of categories. Straus was voted “Most Congenial Player,” while Moss was voted “Best All-Around Hold’em Player” and “Deuce-to-Seven Lowball Champion.” At the end of the evening, Binion asked the players to vote for best all-around player. According to the anecdote in “All In: The (Almost) Entirely True Story of the World Series of Poker,” every player voted for himself. Binion then asked them to vote a second time, “for whom they thought was second best.” It was after this vote that Moss was proclaimed World Champion, and the winner of the inaugural WSOP. No cash prizes were awarded to the winner, but a lot of money changed hands over the three days of the tournament, given that the players used their own money in competition.