World Poker Tour

World Poker Tour

In 2003, TV producer Stephen Lipscomb and casino mogul Lyle Berman created the World Poker Tour, to “establish poker as a significant televised mainstream sport by broadcasting top poker tournaments around the world under the premier brand of the WPT.” In doing that they helped increase the popularity of poker by bringing it into millions of homes. On March 31, 2003m the World Poker Tour made its television debut on the Travel Channel. The inaugural season of the WPT consisted of 13 events, all No Limit Texas Hold’em tournaments. The tournaments were held in various casinos around the United States and on board cruise ships. Episodes are hosted by Mike Sexton, Vince Van Patton and occasionally James Woods. To add some beauty to the show, producers brought in former model Shana Hiatt, but later replaced her with newscaster Courtney Friel. The WPT schedule now consists of 15 tournaments in the United States, and several boot camps.

Each of the World Poker Tour events awards points to the top 7 finishers ranging form 200 to 1000 points for 1st place. At the end of each season the player with the most points accumulated is named the WPT Player of the Year.

Entry to some of the WPT events can be won by playing satellite games at online poker sites like Cake Poker and Bet 365 Poker.

Currently the main and biggest sponsor of the WPT is Party Poker. The decision to sponsor the WPT is one of the reasons why Party Poker has catapulted themselves to the top of the popularity list of online poker sites.

Past winners of the WPT Player of the year are:
Season 1 Howard Lederer
Season 2 Erick Lindgren
Season 3 Daniel Negreanu
Season 4 Joe Bartholdi
Season 5 Carlos Mortensen
Season 6 David Chu

Return To Homepage

© 2008 ReferencePoker.com