BY TOM SOMACH

Professional poker’s annual three-ring circus–the World Series of Poker (WSOP)–began today in Las Vegas with a $5,000 buy-in, mixed limit Texas hold ‘em tournament.

The tourney is the first of 55 separate poker touraments that will be played at this year’s six-week-long WSOP, being held at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino, just off Vegas’ famed Strip.

The final tournament of the 55 will be the WSOP’s signature event, the $10,000 buy-in, no-limit Texas hold ‘em tourney, which gets underway in about four and a half weeks.

The winner of that tournament is generally considered the winner of the WSOP.

Previous recent winners of that tourney, also referred to as the WSOP main event, are Jamie Gold last year, Joseph Hachem in 2005, Greg “Fossilman” Raymer in 2004 and Chris Moneymaker in 2003, the year the worldwide poker boom took off.

When Moneymaker won his title, he was one of about 800 poker players competing in the main event.

When Gold won his title, just three years later, there were over 8,000 poker players competing in the main event, more than a tenfold increase.

No one knows for sure whether the number of participants in the main event this year will be higher or lower than last year’s total, because new WSOP rules this time prevent anyone from qualifying for the WSOP by winning an online poker tournament.

The move was made by the WSOP in response to anti-online gambling legislation passed by the U.S. Congress last fall.

In last year’s WSOP, many of the participants in not just the main event but in the lesser events too, qualified online.

As has been a WSOP tradition, the winner of each of the 55 events will not only receive a cash prize but also a coveted gold WSOP bracelet.

Lifetime, Doyle “Texas Dolly” Brunson, Johnny Chan and Phil “Poker Brat” Hellmuth Jr., who have each won the WSOP main event, have each won a total of 10 WSOP bracelets.

So in addition to looking towards who will win the 2007 WSOP main event, poker aficionados are also looking to who, if anyone, will become the first person to win 11 bracelets.

All 10 of Hellmuth’s bracelets have been won in no-limit, Texas hold ‘em events, while Brunson and Chan have won theirs in a variety of events.

As usual, this year’s WSOP will be televised in the USA on ESPN.

(E-mail Tom Somach at tomsomach@yahoo.com.)