One year removed from Chris Moneymaker’s incredible Main Event victory, the so-called ‘poker boom’ happened, and the realm of poker exploded. The World Championship of 2004 had three times the 839 entries of 2003, as a jaw-dropping 2,576 played the $10,000-entry World Series of Poker Main Event. In the end, if Moneymaker’s breakthrough year was all about new blood coming into the game, the 2004 world champion was something of a fossil.
Preliminary Events Hint at Madness to Come
A grand total of 32 events took place in 2004 prior to the 33rd and final event, the World Championship. The Player of the Year award was also introduced, and Canadian poker legend Daniel Negreanu, also known as ‘Kid Poker’, won it. Negreanu cashed six times, reached five final tables, and won the 287-strong $2,000 Event #15: Limit Hold’em bracelet event to take the overall title above closest challenger Ted Forrest.
Ted Forrest may have just missed out on winning the inaugural Player of the Year race, but he did scoop 2 bracelets that year. The first coming in Event #3: $1,500 Seven Card Stud and the second in Event #23: $1,500 No Limit Hold’em, earning a total of $411,740 from just those tournaments. Early bracelet tournaments were also won by Future Hall of Fame players such as future Poker Hall of Famers T. J. Cloutier (Event #26: $1,500 Razz) and Barry Greenstein (Event #16: $5,000 No Limit 2-7 Lowball Draw), as well as Kathy Liebert, whose burgeoning reputation as the best female poker player in the world was bolstered by her victory in Event #17: $1,500 Limit Hold’em Shootout for $110,180 where she beat Kevin Song who had won a bracelet in the $2,000 Limit Hold’em tournament in 1997.
Ted Forrest wasn’t the only player that year to win 2 bracelets. Scott Fischman also won two events, claiming the $1,500 No Limit Hold’em Event #9 and $2,000 H.O.R.S.E. Event #12. Liebert’s bracelet-winning heroics were reproduced by fellow female player Cyndy Violette in Event #10: $2,000 Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo 8 or Better, and by Annie Duke, who won the $2,000 Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better Event #19 for $137,860, defeating Erik Seidel along the way.
Records Broken and Harrington Doubles Up
If the 32 events that took place before the Main Event kicked off showed us anything in 2004, it was not only that poker was booming, but that truly anyone could win. The schedule was packed with tournament buy-ins that appealed to players of all levels.
The 22-year-old Gavin Griffin became the youngest bracelet winner in WSOP history when he won the $3,000 buy-in Pot Limit Hold’em event #25 for $270,420, beating a final table that included Phil Hellmuth and Ram ‘Crazy Horse’ Vaswani. Vaswani was part of The Hendon Mob, a four-piece British poker group who set up the pioneering website of the same name which catalogues every ranking tournament and result from the world poker since 2000. The site continues to add thousands of events and results to it’s archives, keeping a living record of the history of poker.
Legends of the game such as John ‘Johnny World’ Hennigan (Event #29: $5,000 Limit Hold’em) and T.J. Cloutier won bracelets before it was time for the Main Event. In previous years, the WSOP Main Event had taken two, three or four days to conclude. In 2004, it would take a week to find a world champion. And the story would be one for the ages.
The Other Bracelet Winners
The other bracelet winners from that year were Carl Nessel (Event #1: Casino Employees No Limit Hold’em), James Vogl (Event #2: $2,000 No Limit Hold’em), Aaron Katz (Event #4: $1,500 Limit Hold’em), Curtis Bibb (Event #5: $1,500 Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better), Minh Nguyen (Event #6: $1,500 Pot Limit Hold’em), Gerald Drehobl (Event #7: $1,000 No Limit Hold’em), Chau Giang (Event #8: $2,000 Pot Limit Hold’em), Eli Balas (event #11: $2,500 Limit Hold’em), Thomas Keller (Event #13: $5,000 No Limit Hold’em), Hasan Habib (Event #14: $1,500 Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo 8 or Better), Phi Nguyen (Event #18: $1,500 No Limit Hold’em Shootout) Hung Doan (Event #20: $1,000 Ladies Limit Hold’em), Antonio Esfandiari (Event #21: $2,000 Pot Limit Hold’em), Brett Jungblut (Event #22: $5,000 Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better Championship), Joe Awada (Event #24: $5,000 Seven Card Stud Championship), Farzad Bonyadi (Event #27: $1,000 LImit 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball), Gary Gibbs (Event #28: $1,000 Seniors No Limit Hold’em), Mike Sica (Event #30; $3,000 No Limit Hold’em), Ted Lawson (Event #31: $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha), and Norm Ketchum (Event #32: A-5 Draw Lowball).
2003 WSOP Main Event – Part 1 2004 WSOP Main Event – Part 2
About the Author: Paul Seaton has written about poker for over 10 years, interviewing some of the best players ever to play the game such as Daniel Negreanu, Johnny Chan and Phil Hellmuth. Over the years, Paul has reported live from tournaments such as the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas and the European Poker Tour. He has also written for other poker brands where he was Head of Media, as well as BLUFF magazine, where he was Editor.