July 18, 2005
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Know When to Hold ‘Em
Monday July 18, 2005 4:00AM PT
Poker‘s popular. Duh, you say. You know it’s hot — you can’t turn on the TV without running into a televised tournament, can’t read a magazine without coming across an article about its elevated profile, and it’s been all-in on Buzz for the past couple of years.
Joseph Hachem
The buzz surrounding the felt, flop, and fickle fate of players reached new heights with this week’s World Series of Poker main event — the No-Limit Texas Hold ‘Em Championship. This year’s tourney pushed searches on the Series up 197% and into our top 200 searches. Related queries on “World Series of Poker results,” “World Series of Poker Live updates,” and “World Series of Poker standings” all soared mid-week as railbirds looked to see which card shark held the largest chip stack. Searches on WSOP (+258%), wsop.com (+110%), and WSOP results (+341%) finished out a royal flush of World Series related terms.
The WSOP’s final event is Texas Hold ‘Em‘s holy grail. While the final table wasn’t blessed with any legendary names this year, searches on final table denizens Mike Matusow and Joseph Hachem were aces. Hachem took home the $7.5 million grand prize and will see his buzz profile rise if past champs Chris Moneymaker and Greg Raymer are any example.
The just-finished finale won’t air on ESPN until mid-November, but judging by the buzz on the Series so far, it’ll be a full house in front of TV sets this fall.
