World Poker Tour – history of the tournament

The World Poker Tour is a relatively young event, but it has already attracted thousands of players who are ready to participate.

The history of the tournament goes back to 2001. WPT owes its inception to a simple producer from the USA, Stephen Lipscomb. Just then, he thought that the idea of broadcasting poker tournaments will become quite popular. Within a year, Stephen was able to make his wish a reality. Anyone can take part in the World Poker Tour. You have to pay a fee or win a satellite tournament to qualify.

The first WPT event was held in May 2002. About 150 players competed that time and Gus Hansen was the winner. He received more than $500,000 and it was from this tournament that his winning journey in poker began.

This championship attracted the attention of a large number of spectators. As a result, at the end of 2002, the Travel Channel started broadcasting it. The following year, the championship was held at one of the best casinos in Los Angeles. However, the buy-in remained unchanged, as did the winner. Gus Hansen became the champion again, receiving more than $530,000.

Gradually, the WPT began to grow in popularity and attract many participants and spectators. Extensive advertising campaign has largely contributed to this. All this led to the fact that the number of players increased every year and in the last season there were already over 5 thousand participants. Along with this, the prize money grew and reached 60 million.

Although the tournament is traditionally held in the USA, several stages were held outside the country. The World Poker Tour was held in Spain, Italy, Canada and Morocco. As in other events of this scale, it is not without scandals. For example, in 2006, several players initiated legal action against the tournament organizers.

The reason for the dispute was that the poker players were not happy with the mandatory procedure of signing a permit for filming, which took place before the start of the tournament. This allowed the organisers to use the video in various advertisements, which contradicted the advertising contracts the players had with other companies. The legal battle lasted about two years and ended with a new agreement format.

The first women’s tournament in the WPT was held in 2008. Although it had a more modest buy-in than the men’s, it was also televised. Then the winner was Nancy Todd Tyner, who earned more than $68,000.

Now the World Poker Tour is one of the most famous poker tournaments. It even has its own Walk of Fame that appeared in 2004. It is located in Los Angeles near the Commerce Casino. It’s not just the best poker players who appear on this Walk of Fame. Even actor James Garner, who was one of those who made a special contribution to the popularization of poker, was honored to appear on this avenue.

Many interesting tournaments have been held as part of the series. One of them took place in 2009, when one of the participants was a Ukrainian-born American, Eugene Timoshenko. In the final he played against Israeli poker player Ran Azor and managed to win a prize of over 2 million.

It should be noted that the World Poker Tour belongs to the company PartyGamingPlc, which, in addition, owns a poker room PartyPoker. This makes participation in the World Series available to a large number of participants. Even if a player doesn’t have enough money for the entry fee, he can try to become a satellite winner.

Now, the World Poker Tour is more than just a competition; it’s one of the most popular and exciting tournaments ever. Many professional poker players take part every year, attracted by the massive prize pool.