World poker Tour (WPT)

The first WPT event took place in 2002 with the Five Diamond World Poker Classic in Las Vegas (of course!!).   Formed at a time when interest in Poker was at its peak, the WPT is probably the biggest rival to the prestigious WSOP in terms of draw and the Main event, held each year at the Bellagio, Nevada is a $25,000 buy-in No limit Texas Hold’em event.

While the WPT is a popular tour and the events important on the Poker Calendar, we don’t believe that the growth of this has been as quick as it would have hoped. Despite impressive winning pots of over $3.5m in 06 and 07, when David Chiu won the title of WPT World Champion in 2008, this figure dropped for the first time. 

The 2008/09 tour sees 13 events (down from 18) and there are some great tournaments within the fixture list. Some of the regular events on the WPT include the Five Diamond World Poker Classic, The Los Angeles Poker Classic (a favourite at Poker-Shark.co.uk HQ!) and the Doyle Brunson Classic Championship. Throughout its history, we have enjoyed watching all of the leading names in Professional poker and event winners include Gus Hansen, Daniel Negreanu and Phil Ivey.

We wait with baited breath to see where the tour goes from here....

Below you can see the WPT Main Event winners and Prize since 2002:   

2003       Alan Goehring                   $1,011,886

2004       Martin De Knijff                   $2,728,356

2005       Tuan Le                               $2,856,150

2006       Joe Bartholdi                      $3,760,165

2007       Carlos Mortensen             $3,970,415

2008       David Chiu                         $3,389,140