World Poker Tour

Online world poker tour games preparation and history.

                                              
The World Poker Tour (WPT) is an annual tournament event for all the amateur and professional players. This tournament includes a succession of poker games where the prizes at stake reach millions of dollars. Because it involves a huge amount of money, it is quite understandable that many players in the tournament have mastered the world poker tour strategy.

The concept of the World Poker Tour came from Steve Lipscomb, a lawyer and television producer. Although the idea of setting up a huge WPT came to Mr. Lipscomb as early as September 2001, the WPT season, however, did not start until the last months of 2002 which was extended up to the first quarter of 2003. The first year of WPT was highlighted by the WPT Championship card games in April 2003. The event was held in Belagio Casino, Las Vegas Nevada.

The WPT consists of two facets: the live Texas Hold'em and its counterpart television show. The first aspect, the Live Texas Hold'em, is the prestigious actual poker tournament where the bet amount can soar up to millions and the live WPT strategy is applied. The WPT's second aspect, on the other hand, is the television program of the actual tournament aired across the US and some countries in Latin America and Europe. The show aims to target a large size of audience whose members are mostly poker game enthusiasts.

In 2003, the pioneer season was televised on the American Cable TV's Travel Channel. One year after, specifically in February 1, 2004, the tournament show was televised on NBC. But just recently, the committee administering the affairs of WPT revealed that the show will be moving to GSN in the first or second quarter of 2008 for its 6th season.

With a network partner of its own, WPT thought of ways to seize the pressure and excitement on the real WPT game. Hence, the WPT network utilized 16 cameras capturing and taking WPT game scenes live. The audience can find the show enjoyable because of the technological innovations employed in the program. Through several video cameras, the television viewers can see the cards of the competing players (something that is not available for the real players of the game). Besides that, viewers can also listen to the commentaries of popular hosts Vince Van Patten and Mike Sexton.

In the preliminary competitions of the 14-tournament events, which are held before the WPT Championship game, the winner brings home a $25,000 worth of buy for the World Poker Tour Championship plus the chance to bag the WPT grand prize. The awards for individual competitions are based on how many players will be competing in the tournament or game. In the previous tournaments, the prize ranged from an average of $100,000 for minor events to an average of $1 million for the WPT Championship.

Furthermore, each WPT season launches an invitational tournament for celebrity players. The game features popular figures from the showbiz industry against the famous poker players. This invitational game is usually held to raise funds for the charities supported by the celebrity poker players.

In terms of points awarded to the participants, the winner for the Open tournaments gets 1,000 points while the runner-up receives 700 points. From these points, 100 points is subtracted as the ranking gets lower. Hence, the 3rd placer is awarded with 600, the 4th placer with 500, and so on. Howard Lederer, Erick Lindgren, Daniel Negreanu, Gavin Smith, and J.C.Tan all won in the World Poker Season 1 for first 5 places.