Home / Poker News May 2013 / A Look at Some of the Forgotten WSOP Champions
A Look at Some of the Forgotten WSOP Champions
Posted by: James Carter. - Fri, 2013-05-31 08:18
The WSOP is without a doubt the biggest poker event of the year and its winner (the winner of its Main Event) is considered the poker world champion by most experts. Nowadays, there’s a lot or ruckus made around the champ and it is safe to say that the poker/
online poker industry will quickly provide all the help and the necessary avenues for the said player to have a long and successful professional poker career. Some players choose to take advantage of those opportunities while others shun them and fade into the background as quickly as possible. Regardless, the poker world always cherishes its WSOP Main Event winners as heroes, except for a few cases when it doesn’t.
Hal Fowler is one of the long-forgotten
WSOP Main Event champions (and don’t tell me you have ever heard about this name before). Fowler’s win was a highly significant one from a historic perspective though: he was the very first amateur champion of the World Series of Poker.
In 1979, he registered for the Big Dance, joining a starting field of 53 other players, most of whom were professionals. He made the final table in spite of the odds, together with players like Johnny Moss and Chip Reese. At one point down to only a few BBs, Fowler made a nice comeback and he eventually disposed of Bobby Hoff heads-up – again, against all the odds. Following his monumental accomplishment (mind you this was well before the
PokerStars days) however, the true trail-blazer which Fowler turned out to be, disappeared into the sunset, never taking advantage of his victory in any other way.
Hamid Dastmalchi, the winner of the 1993 Main Event is another such forgotten champ. Berry Johnston’s Main Event win came in 1986 and no, you shouldn’t feel guilty about not having heard of him either.
Join PokerStars now and qualify for the 2013 WSOP – it’s still not too late.
