When talking about America’s sports industry, "Super Bowl" would
most likely mean the NFL’s finals. Every time we mention Super Bowl in
front of football fans, stories of how Pittsburgh Steelers battled for
six Super Bowl victories would surface. Or perhaps, we would hear
about how the reigning champs Baltimore Ravens made a triumphant run
this season. For non-football fans, Superbowl XLVII may be most
remembered for
Beyonce‘s iconic performance during the halftime show. But for
poker enthusiasts especially those who witnessed
Stu
Ungar‘s greatness in the 80s, "Super Bowl" meant the Superbowl of
Poker (SBOP).
Before
the World Series of Poker enjoyed its iconic status today, one of its
competitors was the SBOP. You see, the SBOP was a brainchild of former
1972 WSOP Main Event Champion,
Amarillo Slim. Before the competition made its debut in a
competitive industry, poker fans only tuned to the WSOP events. For
the former champ, he saw this setting as an opportunity. "The World
Series of Poker was so successful that everybody wanted more than one
tournament," Slim said in a report by Poker News. See, he wanted to
take poker all over the world, be it in Germany, Hong Kong, or with
neighboring states. And so, a different Super Bowl was born. SBOP may
not be as large as today’s
PartyPoker-sponsored World Poker Tour, but it was one poker
tournament that card gaming experts and amateurs alike turned to,
especially in a booming entertainment industry.
Much like football’s Super Bowl, the event housed competent players
and some are even included in today’s Poker Hall of Fame. The 1986
Deuce-to-Seven Lowball event in particular, was among the most talked
events in SBOP history. See, the final three competitors of the event
are now Hall of Famers. There was Doyle Brunson, Billy Baxter, and
Johnny Chan. In a way, they paralleled the likes of football greats
Jerry Rice, Jim Brown, or Joe Montana. Unfortunately, while the Super
Bowl in football flourished, the event’s namesake in poker was the
complete opposite.
The lack of stability and a fixed venue prompted SBOP’s operators
to discontinue the once glorious event. Luckily, after the fall of
SBOP, multiple poker tournaments arose. There’s the West’s staple
European Poker Tour which made rounds in poker hubs like Germany and
France. One can say that even with SBOP’s fall, it was a blessing in
itself since it paved way to a new generation of poker players.
