2004 World Series of Poker - 2004 WSOP WinnerThe 2004 World Series of Poker was an institution-shaking event. Greg "Fossilman" Raymer walked away as the 2004 WSOP Winner claiming $5 million and the gold bracelet! While online poker and online poker players had been gaining notoriety, the 2004 World Series of Poker marked the first time an online poker player (a poker player who not only learned and honed his game online, but won his seat at the WSOP through an online poker competition) beat out a pro. Actually, this understates the matter. Almost half (4 out of 9) of the final table at the 2004 World Series of Poker was composed of people who had qualified for the tournament online, including the runner up.The 2004 World Series of Poker marked the first time in 35 years that an online "amateur" clobbered the card sharks in their own home turf. It was only one year before at the 2003 World Series of Poker that an unknown accountant, Chris Moneymaker, took the multi-million dollar victory-pot. Given this, and then the shock of the 2004 results, poker fans flocked quickly to bulletin board and blog to applaud or denounce this turn of events. The opinions split two ways. Bodog wants you to win your seat to the 2011 WSOP Main Event in Las Vegas. Online qualifying events run from Monday, July 5th to Saturday, July 17th, with the Bodog Mini Poker Series Final Tournament happening on Thursday, July 22nd. See the full 2010 Bodog Mini Poker Series event schedule for more details. Some decried the defeat of professional players by their online and/or unknown counterparts as indicative of the game's declining prestige. According to these people the 2004 WSOP winner, Greg "Fossilman" Raymer, would be but the first in a line of amateur players tromping on a "gentleman's tradition". These people called for raising entry requirements, eliminating or limiting on-line buy-in competitions, and a return to the exclusive poker championship of pro versus pro. These people believed that if the 2003 and 2004 WSOP trend should be allowed to continue, the game and tournament would become a mockery. Check out the entire 2010 WSOP Schedule! The other thread of conversation, and the predominating one, was that the ability to qualify for the 2004 World Series of Poker through inexpensive online tournaments had positively transformed the game by making it more open. The reasoning here is democratic in the sense that if the "professionals" cannot stand-up to the "amateur" online players, then the designation of "professional" and "amateur" poker player must be re-considered. According to this view, the 2004 WSOP winner is indeed a professional by virtue of the fact that he proved himself superior to the "professionals". The 2004 World Series of Poker was then proof that the status of "professional" must be based upon merit alone and not the depth of one's pocket book or the fact that one plays in Vegas every night. Whichever spin one may wish to take on the 2004 WSOP winner, one thing is clear. Online poker is indeed a viable alternative to "real" poker and is in fact farming its own breed of "professional" poker players. It is perhaps no accident that shopping malls and department stores prominently featured digital and "real" poker games and kits throughout the 2005 holiday shopping season. Win your seat into the next 2010 WSOP or WPT event by joining Bodog Poker and playing in a satellite tournament! --- by Bones McCoy at offshorepokerroom.com on February 19, 2006
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