The World Poker Tour (WPT) is a series of poker tournaments featuring most of the world’s professional players. It was started by attorney/television producer Stephen Lipscomb who now serves as CEO of WPT Enterprises (WPTE), the firm that controls the World Poker Tour.

The tour had its debut season in the latter part of 2002 and early part of 2003, climaxing with the WPT Championship in April 2003 at the Bellagio Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. The first season aired on the Travel Channel on American cable television in the spring of 2003. The show made its network debut on February 1, 2004 on NBC with a special “Battle Of Champions” tournament, which aired against CBS coverage of the Super Bowl XXXVIII pre-game show. The Travel Channel aired the first five seasons of the Tour. In April 2007, WPTE announced that the series would move to GSN for its sixth season in the spring of 2008. The first WPT tournament to air on GSN, the Mirage Poker Showdown, debuted on March 24, 2008.

The World Poker Tour is a collection of Texas hold ‘em poker tournaments held internationally, but mainly in the United States. The television show has led to a boom in the table game across American homes, local casinos and poker rooms, and online. It is perhaps not surprising, therefore, that the key sponsors of the tour are casinos and online poker sites. The show, which is syndicated internationally, is co-hosted by World Series of Poker winner Mike Sexton, and actor Vince Van Patten. Former model Shana Hiatt served as the show host and sideline reporter in its first three seasons. Former newscaster Courtney Friel took over the host role for the fourth season, and Sabina Gadecki for the fifth.

While both Mike Sexton and Vince Van Patten give the impression that their commentary is “live” as events happen, most of the audio for the show is recorded in post-production, so the commentators can remark about the players’ hole cards. This is due to the fact that many (but not all) of the WPT venues are prohibited by state regulations to allow camera feeds inside a gaming area. Consquently, the audio heard on the show broadcasts is a mix of audio recorded live, and audio commentary recorded in post-production.

First exemplified by the long-running World Series of Poker main event, a poker tournament gives each player an equal amount of chips to start, with colors representing different values. Play continues, typically over several days until one player has acquired all of the chips. When that occurs, that player has won the game and captures the grand prize, approximately 30-35% of the total prize pool. The resulting winner’s check can exceed one million dollars. All other competitors finish with no chips, but win a portion of the prize pool according to the order in which they left the tournament. The last player to lose all of his chip-stack finishes in 2nd position, typically worth approximately 20% of the prize pool.

The drawing power of the WPT, like any poker tournament, is that anyone who can pay the “buy-in” (an amount ranging from $5,000 to $25,000) or win a “satellite” tournament is able to compete against the top professional players, such as Phil Hellmuth, Doyle Brunson, or the top 2004 tournament money and multi-WPT tournament winner, Daniel Negreanu.

Fans of the show find it interesting due to technical innovations such as the ability to see the players’ hole cards through a small camera in front of them on the poker table (an innovation first seen on the UK programme Late Night Poker). Due to the success of the show, special programs, such as the “Hollywood Home Game”, featuring celebrities playing for charity, and “Ladies Night”, where six of the top women played against each other, were developed.

In 2004 the World Poker Tour created a Walk of Fame, inducting poker legends Doyle Brunson and Gus Hansen as well as actor James Garner.

Now in its sixth season of broadcast, it still remains among the highest rated television programs on cable. It airs Mondays on Game Show Network. The first three seasons of WPT are also available on NTSC DVD. (The second season DVD set features audio commentary by several of the players. The third season is only available in a “Best Of” format, featuring just half of the episodes.) CITY TV airs the WPT on Sundays at 4pm PST in Canada with a rebroadcast at Midnight (or shortly after depending on the length of their Sunday Night Movie. The series moved to Monday nights since the move to GSN in 2008. Beginning with the 2008 season, host Mike Sexton no longer toasts the winner of the Tournament with an “official beer of the World Poker Tour” (sponsored in years past by Anheuser-Busch). They now provide champagne glasses for their salute.

A series of spin-off tournaments, titled the Professional Poker Tour, began filming in 2004. No episodes have as yet been broadcast, partly due to a dispute with the Travel Channel over rights. In the fall of 2005, WPTE announced that “a cable channel” (believed to be ESPN) had withdrawn from bidding for the PPT series, and that WPTE was negotiating with the Travel Channel to air the series. On January 30, 2006, WPTE and the Travel Channel announced that they had dismissed all open lawsuits and agreed to air as many as 44 new WPT and PPT events in 2006. The series began regular broadcast July 5, 2006, but was suspended after one season as WPTE couldn’t find a television home for a second season.

Sherman Act lawsuit

In July 2006, seven poker professionals sued WPTE, alleging violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act, the California Cartwright Act, and intentional interference with contract (Complaint and Response). The professionals (Chris Ferguson, Andy Bloch, Annie Duke, Joe Hachem, Phil Gordon, Howard Lederer, and Greg Raymer) allege that WPTE’s standard release forms, required for participation in WPTE events, are anti-competitive and designed to interfere with their contractual obligations to other companies. The anti-competition claim is based on the fact that WPTE’s contracts with the casinos that host its tournaments bar those casinos (and other casinos owned by the same parent companies) from hosting non-WPTE poker events. The claim of interference with contract is based on the releases’ claim to perpetual rights to the players’ likenesses for any use WPTE wishes. The players claim that this would put them in violation of other contracts (such as Ferguson’s Activision Games contract or several players’ contracts with online poker sites). Hachem and Raymer dropped out of the lawsuit before its eventual settlement.

Settlement

In April 2008, WPT Enterprises, Inc. settled with the five remaining players of the lawsuit that was brought against them, Chris Ferguson, said about the settlement, “We are happy to have come to an agreement that is fair to all players, and to have put in place a new release that clears up ambiguities in how players’ images may be used. We are especially happy that this new release will apply to all poker players who wish to participate in WPT tournaments and events.”

WPT Ladies

In January 2008, the WPT announced a set of tournaments for women, known as WPT Ladies. The first season will have five events, with buy-ins ranging from $300 to $1,500. The final table of the final event will be televised.

Player of the Year

Points are awarded for all Open events as follows:

• Winner: 1000 points
• Runner-up: 700 points
• 3rd place: 600 points
• 4th place: 500 points
• 5th place: 400 points
• 6th place: 300 points
• 7th place (TV bubble): 200 points

This award is given out to one player per season. The winners so far are:

• Season 1: Howard Lederer
• Season 2: Erick Lindgren
• Season 3: Daniel Negreanu
• Season 4: Gavin Smith
• Season 5: J. C. Tran
• Season 6: Jonathan Little

Record winnings

Regular Events

WPT Championships

Deal

A fictional WPT championship match is the setting for the 2007 feature film Deal. Sexton, Van Patten, and Friel are slated to play themselves and a number of other poker professionals and poker-playing celebrities are reportedly in the cast. The WPT set was shipped to New Orleans for filming following the season 4 championship.

Links

• Official site
• WPT Online
• WPT on GSN site
• World Poker Tour event reports

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

* 1967—Tim Holland, United States
* 1968—Tim Holland, United States
* 1969— no championships held
* 1970— no championships held
* 1971—Tim Holland, United States
* 1972—Oswald Jacoby, United States
* 1973—Carol Crawford, United States (first female champion)
* 1974—Claude Beer, United States
* 1975—Billy Eisenberg, United States
* 1976—Baron Vernon Ball, United States
* 1977—Ken Goodman, United States
* 1978—Paul “X-22″ Magriel, United States
* 1979—Luigi Villa, Italy
* 1980—Walter Coratella, Mexico
* 1981—Lee Genud, United States
* 1982—Jacques Michel,Switzerland
* 1983—Bill Robertie, United States
* 1984—Mike Svobodny, United States
* 1985—Charles-Henri Sabet, Italy
* 1986—Clement Palacci, Italy
* 1987—Bill Robertie, United States
* 1988—Phillip Marmorstein, Germany
* 1989—Joe Russell, United States
* 1990—Hal Heinrich, Canada
* 1991—Michael Meyburg, Germany
* 1992—Ion Ressu, Romania
* 1993—Peter Jes Thomsen, Denmark
* 1994—Frank Frigo, United States
* 1995—David Ben-Zion, Israel
* 1996—David Nahmad, Israel
* 1997—Jerry Grandell, Sweden
* 1998—Michael Meyburg, Germany
* 1999—Jörgen Granstedt, Sweden
* 2000—Katie Scalamandre, United States
* 2001—Jörgen Granstedt, Sweden
* 2002—Mads Andersen, Denmark
* 2003—Jon Kristian Røyset, Norway
* 2004—Peter Hallberg, Denmark
* 2005—Dennis Carlston, United States
* 2006—Philip Vischjager, Netherlands
* 2007—Jorge Pan, Argentina

References

1. ^ Overview of World Champions Backgammon on Mindzine
2. ^ Backgammon Hall of Fame on Backgammon Galore

A satellite tournament is either a minor tournament or event on a competitive sporting tour or one of a group of such tournaments that form a series played in the same country or region. The term is most commonly used in reference to minor professional or competitive junior tennis.In professional tennis, satellite tournaments are typically organised by a country’s national tennis association and overseen by the International Tennis Federation. They are played by players who are ranked outside the top few hundred by the Association of Tennis Professionals with a high enough national ranking. Prize money ranges from £1000 – £15000 for winning the tournament. Players successful at this level of pro tennis move on to play ATP Challenger Series or even top-flight ATP Tour events.

A satellite tournament in poker is a qualifying event. Winners of these satellites usually win the buy-in fee to a larger, more prestigious tournament like the World Series of Poker Main Event.

Now 4 years ago designed the Player of the Year, Daniel Negreanu win the first place in the $2,000 Limit Hold’em game, $204,874.

Daniel Negreanu (‘Kid Poker’) (born July 26, 1974 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada) is a Canadian professional poker player with four World Series of Poker bracelets and two World Poker Tour Championship titles.

In 1998, Negreanu was the youngest ever WSOP bracelet winner, in his first championship at age 19.

Negreanu was named “Favorite Poker Player” at Card Player Magazine’s Player of the Year Awards Gala in February 2006.

Negreanu is also featured in the 2006 poker video game Stacked with Daniel Negreanu, providing tips and hints as to how to play effectively.

As of 2008, his total live tournament winnings exceed $10,100,000, third in winnings, behind only Jamie Gold, Joseph Hachem. He is the leading money winner on the WPT circuit. He has the highest tournament earnings of any individual who has not won a WSOP Main Event.

This championship starts in May and it is managed by Titan Poker, a thrilling online tournament series where skilled poker players compete for a share of millions of dollars over an action-packed ten days.

The first ECOOP was in December 2007, when they gave away $2,500,000.

The ECOOP II will run from the 3rd of May to the 1st of June. The prizes for this second championship will overcome $3,600,000.

Play for your place on our special ECOOP II leaderboard and you could also win a seat in a $50,000 Freeroll. All top 00 PLAYERS will be eligible to play in the $50,000 GP Freeroll, which will be staged 72 hours after the Main Event.

ECOOP II schedule of events:

You can buy-in to the ECOOP directly or win your seat at our qualifying satellites.

In all the ECOOP tournaments, every event winner will also receive a special ECOOP bracelet!

Ujogo is an application on Facebook for Texas Hold’em poker where no money is wagered and everyone starts with 1000 points. There are prizes and rewards and feature multi-table tournaments, and the possibility to play ring games and sit-n-go’s, as well as special jackpots and monthly leaderboard competitions.

There is no need for downloads or additional registration.

As an active player, the more players you refer the more free chips you get. You will be awarded 1,000 Ujogo Points and $1,000 Ujogo Cash for every successful referral.

Texas hold ‘em (also hold’em, holdem) is the most popular poker game in the casinos and poker card rooms across North America and Europe. Hold ‘em is a community card game where each player may use any combination of the five community cards and the player’s own two hole cards to make a poker hand, in contrast to poker variants like stud or draw where each player holds a separate individual hand. It is the third most active application on Facebook after being installed 5.4 million times and has over 370,000 players per day.

Ujogo was created to provide a fun, innovative, free and legal multi-player casual games experience, starting with poker. Ujogo is derived from “jogo”, which is Portuguese for “game”. Ujogo offers a subscription for premium services, such as training and statistical analysis tools to help you improve your game. They make money from advertising and sponsors.

See you at the poker table!

Titan Poker will host a $2,000,000 guaranteed in prizes tournament on March 2 at 20:00  that will see more than ten million dollars in total tournament payouts each month.

Anyone can buy-in directly for $1,500 + $80, or win his seat at the Main Event by participating in Titan Poker’s Sit’N'Go and Multi-Table Satellites. Start off for $3+$0.30.

Titan Poker is one of the online industry’s leading fully supported poker Card Rooms, with software developed and maintained by Playtech.