The Poker Book Club Predicts Incredible Growth for Poker in 2005

The Poker Book Club expects poker in 2005 to exceed the growth of 2004.

(PRWEB) February 16, 2005 -- 2004 was a banner year for the poker world...right? So, that would mean that tournament attendance would be way up from a year ago...right?

http://www.poker-bookclub.com thought the Jack Binion World Poker Open would be an excellent case study, as it has been a stalwart of the tournament circuit since its inception 6 years ago. Also, it being the first major tournament of the year, http://www.poker-bookclub.com thought it would be an excellent measuring stick for the popularity of tournament poker in 2005.

The Poker Book Club looked at the number of entrants in seven sample events: The $500 buy in NLHE, Limit HE, Pot Limit Omaha, and Stud/8 events...also the $1,000 NLHE, $2,000 NLHE, and $2,000 Limit HE events. I took the entrants over the course of three years 2003-2004 and looked at how the number of entrants grew over those three years.

What the numbers show is truly an explosion....at least for No Limit Hold Em. The lowest buy in ($500) NLHE event, just missed tripling its 2003 mark. A whopping 1449 players bought in to the $500 NLHE event this year, up 280% from the 555 entrants in 2003, and still up 52% from the 950 players who plunked their money down in 2004.

The World Series of Poker begins in a few months. By no means am I a psychic, but I am going to guess that his will be the largest player pool ever. Whatever the final number comes out to be, you can bet that the winner is going to take home a riverboat load of cash.

The Poker Book Club is an online discussion of poker books and articles. Come join The Poker Book Club at http://www.poker-bookclub.com and prepare for the 2005 World Series of Poker.

# # #