With a line of waiting spectators snaking far beyond the tournament room's entrance, poker mania is in full force. This adds up to a prize pool in excess of $40 million, including a first prize of $5 million. And in the Horseshoe's executive offices, World Series honchos are pleasantly surprised that the championship event has attracted some 2,600 players, leaving this year's Series with 1,800 more contenders than last year. Upstairs, near the big room where the tournaments take place (there are 33 events, culminating with the seven-day championship match), the long-haired, bearded 2000 champ, Chris 'Jesus' Ferguson, can't walk more than a few feet without someone stopping him for an autograph. Cloutier.Īt Binion's Horseshoe, site of the 35th annual World Series, 52 all-but-naked women, body-painted as playing cards, parade around to promote an online poker site. The caricatured shills on these signs, designed to coincide with the 2004 World Series of Poker, are familiar faces to anyone who's been watching poker tournaments on TV: Chris Moneymaker, Annie Duke, Howard Lederer, Daniel Negreanu, Layne Flack, Phil Hellmuth, Chris Ferguson and T. It's illustrated on the walls of Terminal B in the form of big, backlit advertisements for Belvedere vodka. Immediately after you arrive at Las Vegas's McCarran International Airport, the impact of the poker boom hits you.

Dean brunson poker