A return to the US for the Main Event bracelet as Greg Merson beat fellow countryman, Jesse Sylvia, heads-up. Like many recent Main Event champs, the then 25-year-old had prepared for the big one with a major cash elsewhere at the World Series. Earlier in 2012, Merson won $1.1 million in a $10,000 Six-Handed No Limit Texas Hold'em event.

A spike in Main Event numbers - 7,319 paid their $10,000 entry in 2010 - saw the first prize in the Main Event jump too. Jonathan Duhamel became Canada's first ever champion when he beat solid American pro John Racener to win the biggest prize of his career.

Danish pro, Peter Eastgate, marked a new era for young WSOP winners. At 22, Eastgate broke the record for the youngest Main Event champ as he defeated another young buck in Ivan Demidov heads-up.

Following the USA's introduction of UIGEA (Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act) in 2006, Main Event numbers began to drop off. It didn't stop unheralded amateurs taking down shock wins, however, and in 2007 devout Christian Jerry Yang stunned Tuan Lam to win over $8 million. The win, of course, was dedicated to God.

WSOP numbers had been rising for years, thanks to the boom in poker and the growth of online satellites. And in 2006, Jamie Gold won the biggest ever Main Event prize - $12 million - by out-talking, out-bluffing, and out-running some of the biggest players around. As in the two previous years, the better player lost, this time Paul Wasicka finishing runner-up.

Australia's Joe Hachem broke the run of American Main Event wins when he won the 2005 WSOP. The tournament had been sold to Harrahs and the whole Series moved to the Rio All-Star Hotel and Casino. And there, Hachem saw off another bumper field of 5,619 to take down the first prize.

With the aptly-named Chris Moneymaker winning in 2003, some 2,576 runners headed to Vegas to try their luck a year later. Another amateur, lawyer Greg Raymer, emerged victorious, and another experienced pro in David Williams ended up in the runner-up chair. Raymer's win would also be the last at Binion's casino.

The win that inspired a generation. An accountant from Atlanta, Moneymaker won his $10,000 seat by playing cheaper qualifiers online. By "spinning up" his $80 into a $2.5 million, it was a fairytale that would see the attendance (839 runners) treble a year later.

Arguably one of the most talented players to win a WSOP Main Event, Mortensen prevented Dewey Tomko (a runner-up in 1982) completing an amazing comeback. Mortensen won $1.5 million for his win. The next day, Tomko was back on the Vegas golf courses playing for a million a hole.

The beginning of a new generation of champion began in 2000 as former MIT math grad, Chris Ferguson, overpowered the old-school experience of T.J. Cloutier to win his first bracelet. "Jesus" would become a key figure of the game until his involvement in the collapse of Full Tilt 11 years later.

"If you call, it's gonna be all over, baby!" The immortal last line of the 1998 WSOP from Vietnamese refugee, Scotty Nguyen, induced Kevin McBride to make an ill-fated call. Nguyen wasn't bluffing, though, and his winning hand gave him the top prize and the fast-track to poker immortality.

Ungar's return to the WSOP in 1997 was as heroic as it was tragic. The final table - played out in the open air next to Binion's Horseshoe - showed a player going for his third historic Main Event. But is also showed a frail man ravaged by drugs. Ungar won a million bucks that year but 12 months later he would be dead without a cent to his name.

One of the most complete all-round poker pros, and a lover of "proposition bets", Huck Seed proved a popular winner in 1996. Huck continued to rack up WSOP wins, notably in side events like Razz and 2-7 Draw, but the 1996 Main Event remains his greatest achievement.

"Action Dan" may be known for a popular series of poker books, Harrington On Hold'em, but he's also a legend of the game with over $6 million in career earnings. In 1995, Harrington prevented a first Canadian Main Event win for Howard Goldfarb by besting a field of 273.

Russ Hamilton had already secured minor cashes around LA and California before he bagged the big one at the 1994 WSOP. Hamilton would gain more "fame" for his 2008 role in a cheating scandal while acting as a consultant for disgraced online poker room, Ultimate Bet. He was found guilty of cheating online players out of millions of dollars.

Jim Bechtel's 1993 Main Event win remains his only gold bracelet of his career, although he's reached 9 final tables in other WSOP tournaments. Main Event numbers were on the rise again in 1993, up to 220 with the first prize remaining a cool million bucks.

The San Diego pro won multiple bracelets at the World Series of Poker, but none were so coveted as his 1992 Main Event triumph. By this point, around a dozen smaller events were being contested, but the Main Event - despite a drop in numbers that year - proved the biggest draw.

The Iranian-born player became the first UK-based pro to win the Main Event when he bested a field of 194 back in 1990. Heads-up, he beat the wonderfully-named Hans "Tuna" Lund, but the final table was also notable for the reappearance of Stu Ungar.

Despite several small cashes on the circuit, a young 24-year-old Phil Hellmuth stunned the poker community in 1989 by stopping Johnny Chan get his treasured third WSOP Main Event bracelet. Hellmuth would go on to amass 14 WSOP bracelets (a world record) and $19 million in career prize money.

Chan - and his lucky orange - made it two in two years with a cool dismantling at the final table of Erik Seidel. His sucker punch on the final hand was immortalized in the film 'Rounders'. Only a young upstart called Phil Hellmuth Jr. would prevent Chan making it three in a row one year later...

Along with Phil Ivey and Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan sits in second place in the all-time WSOP bracelet winners' list. But it is his back-to-back Main Event triumphs in the mid-80s that have made Chan a legend.

At one point, 5-time bracelet winner Berry Johnston had more WSOP cashes than any other player. He was a fearsome opponent who won the 1986 Main Event in style for a $570,000 payday.

US pro, Bill Smith, made three Main Event final tables in his career, taking down the title once in 1985. The story goes that his heads-up opponent, T.J. Cloutier, was hoping for a drunk Smith to turn up. Sadly for him, a semi-drunk Smith turned up and he played an incredible game.

"Gentleman Jack" moved from cash games to tournaments, and - like many WSOP champions - managed a Main Event triumph in the same year as winning a first bracelet. Keller won a Stud side event earlier in the summer before taking down $660,000 in 1984's Main Event.

The advent of the "satellite" - a cheap qualifier that gave players the chance to win a bigger Main Event seat - meant that the WSOP could attract more players. And attract they did: in 1983, 108 runners turned out for the Main Event, ultimately won by Tom McEvoy.

"Treetop" famously won the 1982 Main Event, beating Dewey Tomko heads-up. But his win was also famous for coining the phrase, "a chip and a chair". Legend has it Straus moved all-in, betting all his chips on the table. He lost, but discovered he had dropped a single chip on the floor. His one lifeline was spun up into a big stack, and he went on to win.

It's hard to believe that when the World Series of Poker began back in 1970, there were fewer than 50 poker tables in the entire city of Las Vegas. There were only 70 poker tables in the whole state of Nevada. Binion's Horseshoe, the host casino, did not even have a poker room. The contest that would come to decide poker's first world champion was held inside an alcove about the size of an ordinary hotel room. Thirty or so gamblers shoehorned themselves around a few poker tables. They didn't know it at the time, but they were making poker history.

A gin rummy from New York who was so good he couldn't get a game, Stu "The Kid" Ungar switched to poker and never looked back. His slight frame and gaunt features were a marked contrast to the Stetson-wearing opponents at the WSOP, but he was never fazed and beat Doyle Brunson heads-up in 1980.

Bobby Baldwin won four bracelets in the 1970s, and went on to found 'Bobby's Room', a high-stakes cardroom at Las Vegas's Bellagio casino. His crowning achievement, though, was winning the 1978 Main Event to mark a brief lull in old-school road gamblers taking down the big one.

Brunson won again in 1977 with the same hand, 10-2, as he defeated Gary Berland heads-up. It would also mark the end of winner-takes-all in WSOP Main Events.

Brian Roberts had already won a WSOP bracelet - the previous year's $5,000 No Limit Deuce to Seven Draw - when he took down 1975's Main Event. Again, the 21 runners competed for a winner-takes-all prizepool of $210,000.

Another "jump" in M.E. entrants - to 16 - saw a prizepool of $160,000 created in 1974. Big-hatted Crandell Addington came close - he would finish runner-up again in 1978 - but Johnny Moss added a third Main Event bracelet to his name.

13 entrants turned out in 1973 in an expanded WSOP that carried seven separate events. The previous year's defeated runner-up, Puggy Pearson, took down the winner-takes-all first Main Event prize. It would be the year that TV took an interest, with CBS Sports putting the tournament on television for the first time.

The Main Event entrants rose in 1972, to a staggering TWELVE, with the buy-in also doubling. The $10,000 buy-in has remained ever since. "Amarillo Slim" Preston stunned the poker world - such as it was - that year by defeating Puggy Pearson and became poker's first celebrity.

Seven players paid $5,000 to enter the first ever WSOP Main Event "tournament", with Moss winning for real this time. He also won another bracelet event that year, $1,000 Limit Ace-to-Five Draw.

The WSOP wasn't played as the tournament we all know until 1971. 1970's "champion", Johnny Moss, was simply voted as the best out of a group of high-stakes gamblers who had gathered in Las Vegas that summer. The vote had to be redone after everyone, er, voted for themselves.