The World Poker Tour (WPT) is an internationally televised gaming and entertainment brand.Since 2002, the World Poker Tour has operated a series of international poker tournaments and associated television series broadcasting playdown and the final table of each tournament. The most prominent of World Poker Tour events belong to the WPT Main Tour. World Poker Tour 2015-2016 (Season XIV) by Erik Fast 1 year ago. Joshua Adkins has won the 2019 World Poker Tour bestbet Bounty Scramble.

1. World Poker Tour
2. World Poker Tour Winner

Daniel Dvoress Takes Down Mike Sexton Classic for $294,346, as $8.5M WPT. World Poker Tour® and partypoker LIVE partner for WPT® Russia. Two Final Tables, One Victory: Mike Watson Dominates the Night in WPT Montreal. 2,100.00 Points. 1,700.00 Points. 1,700.00 Points.

The World Poker Tour is a series of high-stake poker tournaments that are broadcast globally in over 150 different countries. Developed by its parent company WPT Enterprises, Inc., the main poker tour is just one facet of the companies reach into poker. They also have an additional super high stakes tour, cruises, an online gaming site, additional poker tours, as well as several other smaller facets of the business.

WPT Enterprises, Inc. started their drive into the poker industry in 2002 and have been on an upward growth spike with significant expansion ever since. In 2009, the WPT was sold to PartyGaming for $12.3 million dollars. In 2014, the WPT formed an alliance with gaming provider Ourgame to begin expansion into the Asian market. Not more than a year later, the WPT elected to buy Ourgame for $35 million in an all cash offer.

The Main Poker Tour

The most notable aspect of the WPT brand is the World Poker Tour’s main tour. Winners of these marquee events have their names etched onto the Champion’s Cup and inducted into the Champion’s Club. Winners also receive a WPT bracelet and prize money usually in the high six to low seven figures range.

Most stops on the WPT have preliminary events leading up to the main event. The buy-ins for these preliminary events are always changing but usually, start around $500. The Main Event buy-ins also range in value from usually £2200 up to either $15,000 or $25,000 US for the season long championship event. The number of stops is usually somewhere between 15 and 20 locations all around the world.

The season culminates in the World Championship event that for many years was a $25,000 event at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. Over the past few years, the buy-in for the Championship event has dropped to $15,000, and the location has fluctuated. The name of the event was also changed from the WPT Championship to the WPT World Championship at the end of season 8 and to the WPT Tournament of Champions going into season 14.

All of the WPT events are open to all participants as long as you have the cash for the buy-in. It is a common misconception that there are “tour cards” or some system like that needed to be involved in a major poker tour. Part of the allure of poker and these major tours is that anyone can come compete if they have the money to pay the entry fee.

The WPT has two different systems for determining the season champion and the Player of the Year. Season Champion is decided by the player who wins the end of the year Main Event. It does not matter if the player has won or even competed in any earlier tournaments, just how they finish in the final event.

The prize pools of the WPT Championship events saw a rise from season 1 through season 6, but have seen a steady decline ever since. Here is the list of former Champions as well as how much they won for winning first prize:

While this player is known as the Champion, most people hold the Player of the Year in much higher regard as it is how the player performed throughout the entire season and not just one event. This eliminates a lot of variance and gives a much better picture of who the strongest player on the tour is.

For seasons 1-8, the final 7 players in each main event were awarded Player of the Year points. The player who finishes the season with the most points is deemed the Player of the Year for that season. Points awarded for seasons 1-8 were as follows:

• 1^st Place – 1,000 points
• 2^nd Place – 700 points
• 3^rd Place – 600 points
• 4^th Place – 500 points
• 5^th Place – 400 points
• 6^th Place – 300 points
• 7^th Place – 200 points

At the end of season 8, the system was changed to award Player of the Year points to all players that finished in the money of the tournament. As the payout structure usually pays around 10% of the field, 10% of the field is awarded points on a sliding scale with the bottom of the scale awarding a minimum of 50 points.

Here is the list of Player of the Year winners until now:

• 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
• Season 7: Bertrand Grospellier
• Season 8: Faraz Jaka
• Season 9: Andy Frankenberger
• Season 10: Joe Serock
• Season 11: Matthew Salsberg
• Season 12: Mukul Pahuja
• Season 13: Anthony Zinno
• Season 14: Mike Shariati
• Season 15: Benjamin Zamani

In 2013, the World Poker Tour added a super high roller series known as the Alpha 8. So far, each season has had four events, each with a $100,000 buy-in event (and a £60,000 event in London). Currently, the WPT doesn’t have any events listed for this year, but there have been no reports of the events being canceled.

Each season since 2015, the WPT has added events with buy-ins of $550. These aim to be a more accessible buy-in to allow players of all skill levels the opportunity to play in WPT events.

The birth child of Chris Torina, the Deepstacks Live Poker Tour merged with the WPT to form WPT-Deepstacks in 2016. The tournament series are held all over the world and are one of the strongest growing parts of the WPT name. Buy-ins range from a couple hundred to the main events that are usually $1100 with a season ending Main Event Championship of $2500. These events are meant to be accessible, yet still lucrative enough to draw in some of the top talents in the industry.

What is the World Poker Tour

The World Poker Tour is a series of world class poker tournaments that have been running since 2002. It’s popularity contributed massively to the poker boom which introduced millions of players into the sport of poker.

The tour was created by Steven Lipscomb who is a Television producer. Steven grew the tour into one of the most prestigious and most watched poker events on television, with large fields, large prizes and all the top players helping to propel the WPT to the top of the TV ratings.

Revolutionising Poker on TV

For the first five seasons of the tour the Travel Channel bought the rights and broadcast the TV shows. Later on this switched to GSN in the USA whilst other channels all over the World also broadcast the glitz and bright lights of the WPT final tables.

The TV shows are hosted by poker legend Mike Sexton and his co-host Vince Van Patten. Some of the most famous moments in poker have happened at WPT final tables with the camera’s watching.

World Poker Tour

Not Just for Men

Although many Female Poker Players take part in the World Poker Tour events, the tour has always ran a specialised event available only for women entrants. In 2008 they expanded this by creating a series of tournament for women called WPT Ladies with buys in ranging from $300 to $1,500. This didn’t really catch on and there are no ladies only events included in the current season schedule, although there continues to be a strong female contingent in the entrants to WPT events.

The Future of the WPT

Lipscomb remained as CEO up until November 2009 when PartyGaming (the company behind Party Poker) purchased the WPT for a fee of $12.3million.

World Poker Tour Winner

It was also in 2009 that the WPT started to award winners of its tournaments with bracelets, very similar to the World Series of Poker which has always awarded a valuable bracelet as a trophy to each winner. This has always been popular amongst poker players with the phrase “how many bracelets has he/she won” well understood as how many WSOP events have they won. Previous winners of WPT events were also given a bracelet retroactively in order to keep it consistent and try to bring the WPT into the poker craze of counting bracelets.

PartyGaming have also introduced a second series of the tour under their PartyPoker brand name, focusing mainly on European Stops in an attempt to compete with the hugely popular European Poker Tour, which is part owned by their rival Pokerstars.