World Poker Tour

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In 2002, the Travel Channel took a gamble on a unique concept for a television show: every week they would air a final table of six players from a different poker tournament. The show was popular, and when Chris Moneymaker won the 2003 World Series of Poker Main Event, the World Poker Tour was a genuine hit. The World Poker Tour follows a series of big buy-in tournaments across the globe (primarily the in the United States). While the line-up changes year-to-year, the tournaments are vastly popular and attract large fields with massive prize pools.

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The 2006-2007 lineup began at The Mirage in Las Vegas, Nevada in May and will finish at the Bellagio in April. Buy-ins for the tournaments range from $1000 to $10,000, with the exception of the WPT World Championship event. Held each year at the Bellagio, this tournament comes with a $25,000 price of admission, but it’s worth it: last year’s World Poker Tour champion, Jospeh Bartholdi, walked away with $3,735,950.

WPT History

The World Poker Tour (WPT) doesn’t have the clout that the WSOP has, but it’s definitely a very popular live poker series around the world and that’s evident by the success of the tour. The WPT started in 2002 and appeared on the Travel Channel at the time since poker wasn’t that popular back in 2002. After the poker boom in 2003 the WPT became a lot more popular and has been running every year since it started. The 9th season of the WPT will be starting shortly this year and there are plenty of ways that you can earn a seat in one of the WPT events around the world.

One of the major differences between the WPT and WSOP is the fact that the WPT is played in countries around the world. The WPT is also played throughout the year rather than during one continuous timeframe like the WSOP. The most famous WPT event takes place near the end of the year and is the $25K Championship, which always features the best poker pros. Over the years the WPT has added new events to the tour and there are now over 20 events every season.

Past WPT Winners

Some very well known players have had a lot of success in the World Poker Tour events, but you don’t hear much about it since everyone is focused on the WSOP Main Event bracelets only. A lot of people don’t know this, but the player with the most winnings in the history of the WPT is Daniel Negreanu. Throughout WPT history, Negreanu has been able to earn over $5.5M in winnings, which is a lot more than 90% of poker players make in a lifetime.

A few other very popular players that frequent the WPT events include Phil Ivey, Barry Greenstein and Gus Hansen. Each of these players has a ton of experience playing in WPT events and they’ve all also seen a lot of success on the tour. You can become the next WPT Champion by qualifying for a WPT event with your favourite online poker room. A lot of the big poker sites have yearly qualifiers that allow players the chance to win a prize package to the WPT.

WPT Boot Camp

The WPT also runs a boot camp that travels the world teaching poker players how to become better. If you want to have live training from some of the best instructors in the game of poker the WPT Boot Camp is a must. There are tons of upcoming events that you can check out on the WPT Boot Camp webpage. Over the years the WPT Boot Camp has become really popular and if you’d like training live in person with like-minded people you’re going to want to take advantage of this opportunity.