The 1971 World Series of Poker (WSOP) was a series of poker

Poker

Poker is a family of card games that share betting rules and usually hand rankings. Poker games differ in how the cards are dealt, how hands may be formed, whether the high or low hand wins the pot in a showdown , limits on bet sizes, and how many rounds of betting are allowed.In most modern poker...

 tournaments

Poker tournament

A poker tournament is a tournament where players compete by playing poker. It can feature as few as two players playing on a single table , and as many as tens of thousands of players playing on thousands of tables...

 held at Binion's Horseshoe

Binion's Horseshoe

Binion's Horseshoe, also known as the Horseshoe Casino or simply The Horseshoe, was a hotel and casino located in downtown Las Vegas, Nevada on what is now the Fremont Street Experience. The casino was named for its founder, Benny Binion and had 366 rooms, three restaurants and a rooftop pool.The...

 during May 1–15, 1971. This was only the second installment of the World Series of Poker

World Series of Poker

The World Series of Poker is a world-renowned series of poker tournaments held annually in Las Vegas and, since 2005, sponsored by Harrah's Entertainment...

, but unlike at the 1970 event

1970 World Series of Poker

The World Series of Poker was first held in 1970. Unlike the WSOP events that followed it, which are decided using a freeze-out tournament, the 1970 champion was decided by voting...

, freezeout tournaments were played to decide the winner of the main title. The freezeout structure replaced the cash game

Cash game

Cash games, also sometimes referred to as ring games or live action games, are poker games played with "real" chips and money at stake, usually with no predetermined end time, with players able to enter and leave as they see fit...

s, and it was kept in use ever since. Five freezeouts were played in total—four preliminary events and the Main Event—each featuring a different poker variant. The preliminary events required player to put up a buy-in of $1,000, while the Main Event buy-in was $5,000.

Preliminary events

Event	Winner	Prize	Runner-up
$1,000 Limit Betting (poker) In the game of poker, the play largely centers on the act of betting, and as such, a protocol has been developed to speed up play, lessen confusion, and increase security while playing...  Seven-Card Stud Seven-card stud Seven-card stud is a variant of stud poker. Until the recent increase in popularity of Texas hold 'em, seven-card stud was the most popular poker variant in home games across the United States, and in casinos in the eastern part of the country. Two to eight players is common, though eight may...	Puggy Pearson Puggy Pearson Walter Clyde Pearson was an American professional poker player. He is best known as the 1973 World Series of Poker World Champion.-Early years:...	$10,000	Unknown
$1,000 Limit Razz Razz (poker) Razz is a form of stud poker that is normally played for ace-to-five low . The object of Razz is to make the lowest possible five-card hand from the seven cards you are dealt. In Razz, straights and flushes do not count against the player for low, and the ace usually plays low...	Jimmy Casella Jimmy Casella Fiore "Jimmy" Casella was a prominent poker player at the World Series of Poker in the 1970s.In the 1971 World Series of Poker he won the Limit Razz event, but his main poker success came in the 1974 World Series of Poker, where he won the Seven Card Razz and the Seven-Card Stud world championship...	$10,000	Unknown
$1,000 Limit Five-Card Stud Five-card stud Five-card stud is the earliest form of the card game stud poker, originating during the American Civil War, but is less commonly played today than many other more popular poker games. It is still a popular game in parts of the world, especially in Finland where a specific variant of five-card stud...	Bill Boyd	$10,000	Unknown
$1,000 Limit Ace-to-Five Draw Draw poker Draw poker is any poker variant in which each player is dealt a complete hand before the first betting round, and then develops the hand for later rounds by replacing, or "drawing", cards....	Johnny Moss Johnny Moss Johnny Moss was a gambler and professional poker player. He was the first winner of the World Series of Poker Main Event, at the time a cash game event in which he was awarded the title by the vote of his peers in 1970, He also twice won the current tournament format of the WSOP Main Event in...	$10,000	Unknown

Main Event

There were 6 entrants to the main event, each paying $5,000 to enter the tournament. The game played was no limit Texas hold 'em

Texas hold 'em

Texas Hold 'em is a variation of the standard card game of poker. The game consists of two cards being dealt face down to each player and then five community cards being placed face-up by the dealer—a series of three then two additional single cards , with...

. Johnny Moss won the tournament and took the whole prize pool. Moss's victory that year was the first time a player had been awarded the Main Event Championship two years in a row, a feat that would later be also accomplished by Doyle Brunson

Doyle Brunson

Doyle F. Brunson is an American professional poker player who has played professionally for over 50 years. He is the first two-time World Series of Poker main event champion to win consecutively, a Poker Hall of Fame inductee, and the author of several books on poker.Brunson is the first player to...

, Stu Ungar

Stu Ungar

Stuart Errol "Stu" Ungar was a professional poker and gin rummy player, widely regarded to have been the greatest Texas hold 'em and gin rummy player of all time....

, and Johnny Chan

Johnny Chan (poker player)

Johnny Chan rather than his Chinese birth name. born in Guangzhou, China in 1957) is a Chinese American professional poker player. He has won 10 World Series of Poker bracelets, including 1987 and 1988 World Series of Poker main events consecutively....

.

Final table

Place	Name	Prize
1st	Johnny Moss Johnny Moss Johnny Moss was a gambler and professional poker player. He was the first winner of the World Series of Poker Main Event, at the time a cash game event in which he was awarded the title by the vote of his peers in 1970, He also twice won the current tournament format of the WSOP Main Event in...	$30,000
2nd	Walter "Puggy" Pearson Puggy Pearson Walter Clyde Pearson was an American professional poker player. He is best known as the 1973 World Series of Poker World Champion.-Early years:...	None
3rd	Unknown	None
4th	Unknown	None
5th	Unknown	None
6th	Unknown	None