WSOP 1993
As a professional poker correspondent, I've been very fortunate to witness and write about a wide range of the highest level tournaments around. The greatest advantage of this position is being able to take a "long lens" view of the World Series of Poker, to use a cinematic analogy.
It has been utterly fascinating to watch this great tournament shift, change, grow and evolve over the years and decades. While any poker fan could name his or her favorite year in terms of sheer excitement and thrills, 1993 is generally agreed to have been a very solid year.And why not? After all, as Americans in general we were doing pretty well in 1993. That was, in case you've forgotten, the very first year in which a text-based Web browser was made available to the public. At the time, none of us (not even your humble correspondent, who has been labeled by certain members of the poker press as little less than omniscient in his prognostications, though I've often detected a trace of sarcasm in compliments of this type I sometimes get) could imagine how profoundly our lives would be changed as this new communication tool seeped into just about every aspect of daily experience.
Yet, in light of such seismic changes, it is often comforting to know that some things do stay the same. After all, what makes a tradition great if not its capacity to remain dependably constant? As far as poker traditions go, few have as much value and resonance as the World Series of Poker.
In 1993, Benny Binion's brainstorm tournament was celebrating its 14th anniversary. And as usual, the Horseshoe casino in Las Vegas was absolutely in jam-packed with some of the best poker players from all around the world, competing for the right to walk away with a bracelet and a championship title.
In fact, this was the biggest year so far in terms of the number of entrants. In total, 220 individuals found their way to the main event, each of them paying $10,000 for the right to sit at the green felt table and show off their poker acumen.
It would be less than honest of me to say that I predicted an individual name Jim Bechtel to take the $1,000,000. And yet, if I've learned anything from watching the WSOP, it is that my forecasts are usually about as far from reality as can be imagined. Why I continue to be asked to make predictions is something that continues to baffle me. (Maybe people are looking for an indication as to what bets they should avoid. If Mason Raymond predicts a competitor a will take a bracelet, then at least you know who not to wager on. Go figure.)
Nonetheless, I am not the first analyst to be stymied by the sheer unpredictability of the World Series of Poker, so I do my best not to take the mocking jibes of my colleagues too personally. Besides, if I ever get fed up with it, I've got quite a bit of tasty dirt to dish on all of them.
by Mason Raymond
