The World Poker Tour Walk of Fame is designed to honor those poker players who have played the game well at the highest levels as well as those who have promoted the spread of it through film, television, and literature. It was started in 2004.
The Walk of Fame is located in front of the Commerce Casino in Los Angeles, California. As well as inductee handprints on each tile, there is a depiction of each of their respective most famous poker hands.
The World Poker Tour (WPT) is a collection of poker tournaments featuring most of the world’s professional players. It was started by attorney/television producer Stephen Lipscomb who now serves as CEO of WPT Enterprises (WPTE), the firm that controls the World Poker Tour.
The tour had its debut season in the latter part of 2002 and early part of 2003, climaxing with the WPT Championship in April 2003 at the Bellagio Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. The first season aired on the Travel Channel on American cable television in the spring of 2003. The show made its network debut on February 1, 2004 on NBC with a special “Battle Of Champions” tournament, which aired against CBS coverage of the Super Bowl XXXVIII pre-game show.
The World Poker Tour is a collection of Texas hold ‘em poker tournaments held internationally and on board cruise ships, but mainly in the United States. The television show has led to a boom in the table game across American homes, local casinos and poker rooms, and online. It is perhaps not surprising, therefore, that the key sponsors of the tour are casinos and online poker sites. The show, which is syndicated internationally, is co-hosted by World Series of Poker winner Mike Sexton, and actor Vince Van Patten. Former model Shana Hiatt served as the show host and sideline reporter in its first three seasons. Former newscaster Courtney Friel took over the host role for the fourth season in 2005-06.
First exemplified by the long-running World Series of Poker main event, a poker tournament gives each player an equal amount of chips to start, with colors representing different values. Play continues, typically over several days until one player has acquired all of the chips. When that occurs, that player has won the game and captures the grand prize, approximately 30-35% of the total prize pool. The resulting winner’s check can exceed one million dollars. All other competitors finish with no chips, but win a portion of the prize pool according to the order in which they left the tournament. The last player to lose all of his chip-stack finishes in 2nd position, typically worth approximately 20% of the prize pool.
The drawing power of the WPT, like any poker tournament, is that anyone who can pay the “buy-in” (an entry fee usually worth a few thousand dollars) or win a “satellite” tournament is able to compete against the top professional players, such as Phil Hellmuth, Doyle Brunson, or the top 2004 tournament money and multi-WPT tournament winner, Daniel Negreanu.
Fans of the show find it interesting due to technical innovations such as the ability to see the players’ hole cards through a small camera in front of them on the poker table (an innovation first seen on the UK programme Late Night Poker). Due to the success of the show, special programs, such as the “Hollywood Home Game”, featuring celebrities playing for charity, and “Ladies Night”, where six of the top women played against each other, were developed.
In 2004 the World Poker Tour created a Walk of Fame, inducting poker legends Doyle Brunson and Gus Hansen as well as actor James Garner.
Now in its fourth season of broadcast, it still remains among the highest rated television programs on cable. It airs Wednesdays on the Travel Channel. The first three seasons of WPT are also available on NTSC DVD. (The second season DVD set features audio commentary by several of the players. The third season is only available in a “Best Of” format, featuring just half of the episodes.)
A series of spin-off tournaments, titled the Professional Poker Tour, began filming in 2004. No episodes have as yet been broadcast, partly due to a dispute with the Travel Channel over rights. In the fall of 2005, WPTE announced that “a cable channel” (believed to be ESPN) had withdrawn from bidding for the PPT series, and that WPTE was negotiating with the Travel Channel to air the series.
In 2008, the WPT started offering bracelets to its event champions. Players who won a title prior to the release of the bracelet, were given one retroactively.
Player of the Year
Points are awarded for all Open events as follows:
This award is given out to one player per season. The winners so far are:
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
Below are the World Poker Tour events that have broken the record for the first prize.
Like any event or sports league, the WSOP also has corporate sponsors and licensed products, which like any leagues or events, pay fees to market themselves as an official sponor and/or licensee and exclusively use the WSOP insigina and cross-promote with their events. Besides the Harrah’s properties and ESPN, major sponsors have included Miller Brewing’s “Milwaukee’s Best” brand of beers, Pepsi’s SoBe Adreneline Rush energy drink (sponsors of the 2005 TOC), Helene Curtis’ Degree brand of anti-perspirant/deodorant, Card Player magazine, and GlaxoSmithKline/Bayer’s Levitra erectile dysfunction medicine are all official corporate sponsors. Licensees include Activision (video games for different plaforms such as Nintendo’s GameCube, Microsoft’s Xbox, Sony’s PlayStation 2 and PC featuring computer generated versions of stars like Ferguson among others), and products made by different companies ranging from chip sets, playing cards, hand held games and clothing like caps and shirts. The fees and licences bring in over a million dollars to Harrah’s.
The main event
The main event of the WSOP is the $10,000 buy-in no-limit Texas Hold ‘Em tournament. Winners of the event not only get the largest prize of the tournament and golden bracelet, but additionally their picture is placed into the Gallery of Champions at Binion’s.
There have been many memorable events during the WSOP, including Jack Straus’s 1982 comeback win after discovering he had one $500 chip left when he thought he was out of the tournament.
A few players have won the WSOP multiple times, including Stu Ungar who won in 1980, 1981 and 1997. Ungar had a drug problem that spanned decades, which makes his 1997 win all the more amazing. Since Ungar had no money to enter the tournament in 1997, his friend and six-time WSOP bracelet winner Billy Baxter gave him the entrance fee. Ungar split the $1,000,000 prize evenly with Baxter.
Johnny Chan won back to back in 1987 and 1988. Chan finished 2nd in 1989 to the youngest WSOP main event winner of all time, Phil Hellmuth. The final hand of the 1988 event between Chan and Erik Seidel would later be featured in the movie Rounders.
Chris Moneymaker won the main event in 2003 after qualifying through a $39 satellite tournament at the PokerStars online cardroom. Four players at the final table of the 2004 main event qualified through PokerStars as well, including the winner, Greg Raymer and second place finisher David Williams. In 2005, eventual champion Joseph Hachem entered the old fashioned way: with the $10,000 buy-in. After winning, he signed a contract to act as a representative of PokerStars also.
It may be that winning the WSOP makes legends out of people, but some living poker legends have tried unsuccessfully for years to win the main event, including: T. J. Cloutier (2000 and 1985 runner-up), Erik Seidel (1988 runner-up), Dave “Devilfish” Ulliott, Barry Greenstein, Men “The Master” Nguyen, and Howard Lederer.
From 1971 on, all WSOP events have been tournaments with cash prizes. In 1973 a new event, five-card stud, was added to the main event of No Limit Texas Hold ‘em. Since then new events have been added and removed. In 2006 there will be 42 events at the WSOP, including poker games like Omaha and Razz as well as events only for seniors and women. Event winners get, in addition to their prize money, the coveted golden bracelet.
Doyle Brunson (nicknamed “Texas Dolly”) and Johnny Chan have each won ten bracelets, while Phil Hellmuth has nine. Doyle’s son, Todd Brunson, won a bracelet in a pot-limit Omaha event in 2005, making them the first father/son combo to win at least one event at the WSOP. Also, actress Jennifer Tilly became the second non-poker celebrity to win a WSOP event when she won the Women’s No-Limit Texas Hold-’Em event in 2005. French singer/actor Patrick Bruel won a Limit Hold’em championship in 1998.
The number of participants in the WSOP has grown every year, and in recent years the growth has exploded. In 2000 there were 4,780 entrants in the various events, but in 2005, the number rose to over 23,000 players. In the main event alone, participants grew from 839 in 2003, to 2,576 in 2004, to 5,619 in 2005. For the 2006 main event, a cap of 8,000 players has been established. Much of this growth can be attributed to the WSOP airing on ESPN and the World Poker Tour being shown on the Travel Channel, along with other USA television over-the-air and cable networks such as Fox Sports Net and their “Poker Superstars” series, Bravo with the “Celebrity Poker Showdown” series and GSN with their “Poker Royale” series, as well as the boom in online poker cardrooms on the World Wide Web.
Like most tournaments, the sponsoring casino takes a “rake” (a percentage of between six and ten percent, depending on the buy-in amount) from the buy-ins and distributes the rest, hence the prize money increases with more players. In the 2005 main event $52,818,610 (US) in prize money was distributed, including a $7.5 million first prize. Subtracting the $10,000 buy-ins, over $47 million was won by 560 players in the event. Carl Ygborn finished “on the bubble” (in 561st place), and Harrah’s gave him a free entry into the 2006 Main Event.
One event, that was scheduled for Biloxi, Mississippi, was canceled after the Grand Casino Biloxi, which was scheduled to host the event, suffered major damage from Hurricane Katrina. The Rio also hosted the 2006 World Series of Poker, which began on June 25 with satellite events and formally began the day after with the annual Casino Employee event, won in 2006 by Chris Gros. 2006 featured the “Tournament of Champions” on June 25 and 26, won by Mike Sexton. Various events led up to the main event, which was held from July 28 until August 10. The first prize of $12 million was awarded to Jamie Gold.
The World Series of Poker is the most prestigious set of poker tournaments in the world.
Origins
The original World Series of Poker was started by Tom Morehead of the Riverside casino in Reno and was an invitational event. The set of tournaments the World Series of Poker (WSOP) would evolve to was the brainchild of Las Vegas legend, casino owner, and poker player Benny Binion as well as his two sons Jack and Ted.
Johnny Moss, Becky Binion, and Puggy Pearson at the 1974 World Series of Poker
The Binion family not only nurtured the WSOP, but poker in general. Prior to the 1970s, poker was not found at many casinos because of the difficulty of keeping cheaters out. Through better security techniques as well as the Binion’s tireless promotion through events like the WSOP, poker became a very popular game.
In 1970 the first WSOP at Binion’s Horseshoe took place with seven players. The winner, Johnny Moss was elected by his peers as the first World Champion of Poker and received a silver cup as a prize.
A chip race is an event that takes place in poker tournaments, especially those with an escalating blinds (such as Texas hold ‘em), in which chips of denominations that are no longer needed (as the current and upcoming blinds are more easily played with larger chip values) are removed from play. This has the effect of reducing the number of physical chips in front of any player, and makes it easier for the players to count their stacks and their bets.
In a typical chip race:
All players color up their lesser-valued chips into greater denominations. For example, if the blinds have increased to a level where $5 chips are no longer needed to post blinds, each five $5 chips will be exchanged for a $25 chip. Players will temporarily keep any leftover chips that cannot be fully colored up to larger chips (less than 5 $5 chips in the above example).
All leftover chips are counted, and equivalent chips in the larger denomination are presented to the table. Continuing the example, if there are 15 $5 chips remaining among 6 players, 3 $25 chips are prepared. In the event the remaining smaller chips do not add up to a whole larger chip, an extra larger chip should be added as long as the leftover smaller chips total more than half a single larger chip.
Each player with leftover chips in the smaller denomination will receive one card for each chip. The cards are typically dealt face up, starting from the small blind position for the upcoming hand. Each player due to receive cards will receive all of his cards before the next player, rather than a “traditional” card deal; the player on the little blind, for example, who is due to receive three cards for his three chips, will receive all three of his cards before the big blind receives any.
The larger chips are issued to the players with the highest single cards showing (poker hands do not count). No player is issued more than one chip. Ties (cards of the same rank) are broken by suit, using the same bridge (ascending alphabetical) order of the suits: Spades are highest, followed by Hearts, Diamonds, and Clubs. All remaining lesser-value chips are removed from play.
A chip race cannot eliminate a player from the game. In the event a player’s last smaller-denomination chips are removed from play as part of the chip race, he automatically gets one colored up chip if one is available. Any leftover colored up chips go to the winner(s) of the chip race as described above.
Chip monkeying is the act of exchanging lower value poker chips in for higher value chips in a poker tournament. This is also sometimes referred to as “coloring up”.
In most poker tournaments, players begin with a finite amount of chips. As the rounds progress and the blinds and limits increase, players are eliminated by losing all of their chips. The players that remain build increasingly larger stacks of chips. In order to keep the stacks of chips manageable, smaller value chips are removed from the table and replaced with larger value chips. Depending on the game and the rules of the tournament, uneven chips are either rounded up, rounded down, or raced off.
Poker freerolls are poker tournaments that do not require a money buy-in. Commonly called “freerolls” and “freerollz”, they when invented in the early 1960′s when Las Vegas Casinos used them to reward VIPs by offering them a free poker tournament with real money prizes. Poker freerolls have surged in popularity recently with several online poker rooms regularly offering them to attract new players to the site, or to reward existing players’ loyalty. Some online poker freerolls have a raked hands requirement to enter, meaning they are not entirely free. While most poker freerolls have real money prizes, some freerolls will offer other prizes such as trips, clothing, and gift certificates instead.
As the number of freerolls offered by various online casinos grows, the potential to profit solely by playing freerolls has become a reality. Some websites provide players with freeroll schedules, and some players are turning a significant profit just by hopping from site to site to play freerolls.
In poker, a Multi-table tournament (MTT) is a tournament that involves multiple tables. A table generally sits 9 or 10 players, and MTT tournaments can incorporate up to 200 or more tables, for a total of 2000 entrants. MTTs are attractive because the payouts are rather large near the top. For a small investment (and a lot of time) one can win a large monetary prize if they finish In the Money.
While some tournaments offer a mix of games, like H.O.R.S.E. events which combine Hold’em, Omaha, Razz, Stud and Stud Eight or Better and Dealer’s Choice events, at which one may choose from a similar menu of games, most tournaments feature one form of stud or community card poker, such as seven-card stud, seven card high-low stud, Omaha Hold ‘em or Texas Hold ‘em. Both Omaha and Texas Hold’em tournaments are commonly offered in fixed-limit, pot limit, and no limit forms.
Tournament venues
Informal tournaments can be organized by a group of friends; for example, most colleges feature poker tournaments. Casinos and online gaming sites often offer daily tournaments.
However, these are not the only venues. Several World Poker Tour venues are cruise ships at sea. The 2005 World Series of Poker primarily took place in the conference hall of the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas.
Major tournaments
The two largest and most well-known tournaments are the World Poker Tour championship event and the World Series of Poker, held at Binion’s Horseshoe casino in Las Vegas. The World Series has traditionally been featured on ESPN.
The 2005 World Series of Poker was the first held outside of Binion’s Horseshoe Casino, though the final few days of the main event were held in the legendary Benny’s Bullpen. Future tournaments will be held at one of the Harrah’s Entertainment properties; 2005 saw the Rio as primary venue.
Arguably the most publicised European tournament is the Poker Million, which began in 2000 on Sky Sports, following on from the success of the Late Night Poker television show.
Betting, in tournaments, can take one of three forms:
In a structured (fixed limit) betting system, bets and raises are restricted to specific amounts, though these amounts typically increase throughout the tournament. For example, for a seven-card stud tournament with the stakes at 10/20, raises would be $10 in the first three rounds of betting, and $20 in the latter rounds.
Semi-structured betting provides ranges for allowed raises. Usually, in this format, one may not raise less than a previous player has raised. For example, if one player raises $20, it would be illegal for another player to raise an additional $5. Pot limit is a semi-structured format in which raises cannot exceed the current size of the pot.
Unstructured betting, usually called no limit. While blinds, antes, or bring-ins are fixed, players are free to bet as much as they wish, even early in a round of betting. To bet all of one’s chips (risking one’s tournament life, in the event of losing the hand) is to go all-in. In no-limit tournaments, players will sometimes take this risk even early in the betting; for example, in some no-limit Texas Hold ‘Em tournaments, it is not uncommon for players to bet “all-in” before the flop.
The betting structure is one of the most defining elements of the game; even if other aspects are equivalent, a fixed-limit version and its no-limit counterpart are considered to be very different games, because the strategies and play styles are very different. For instance, it is much easier to bluff in a no-limit game, which allows aggressive betting, than in a fixed-limit game. No-limit games also vary widely according to the proclivities of the players; an informal, emergent, betting structure is developed by the players’ personal strategies and personalities.
The stakes of each round, as well as blinds, bring-ins, and antes as appropriate per game, typically escalate according either to the time elapsed or the number of hands played. (Raising stake levels according to hands played is usually considered preferable, because it defeats strategic stalling.) This is done for two reasons. First of all, as players are eliminated from the tournament, the average chip counts of the players increase. Secondly, it prevents the game from getting into a rut where chips are exchanged among the players, but players do not run out.
In a typical tournament, a player pays a fixed entry fee (called a buy-in) and receives, in return, a certain quantity of in-game currency, called play money, invariably represented in the form of poker chips. Typically, the amount of play money given each player is an integer multiple of the buy-in. Only this in-game “play” money can be used in the game, real money cannot. Additionally, real and play money cannot be interchanged at any time. Some tournaments, however, offer the option of a re-buy; this gives players the option of purchasing more chips. In some cases, re-buys are conditional (for example, offered only to players low on chips) but in others they are unconditional, or offered to all players. When a player has no chips remaining (and has exhausted all re-buy options, if any are available) he or she is eliminated from the tournament.
In most tournaments, the number of players at each table is kept even by moving players, either by switching one player or (as the field shrinks) taking an entire table out of play and distributing its players amongst the remaining tables. A few tournaments, called shoot-outs, do not do this; instead, the last player (sometimes the last two or more players) at a table moves on to a second or third round, akin to a single-elimination tournament found in other games.
The prizes for winning are usually derived from the entry fees, though outside funds may be entered as well. For example, some invitational tournaments do not have entry fees. (These tournaments are referred to as freeroll.) Play continues, in most tournaments, until all but one player is eliminated, though in some tournament situations, especially informal ones, players have the option of ending by consensus.
Players are ranked in reverse chronological order — the last person in the game earns 1st place, the second-to-last earns 2nd, and so on. This ranking of players by elimination is unique amongst games, and also precludes the possibility of a tie for first place, since one player alone must have all the chips to end the tournament. (Ties are possible for all other places, though they are rare since the sole tiebreaker is the number of chips one has at the start of the hand in which one is eliminated.)
Sometimes tournaments end by mutual consensus of the remaining players. For example, in a ten-person, $5 game, there may be two players remaining with $29 and $21, respectively, worth of chips. Rather than risk losing their winning, as one of them would if the game were continued, these two players may be allowed to split the prize proportional to their in-game currency (or however they agree).
Prizes are awarded to the winning players in one of three ways:
Fixed: Each placing corresponds to a certain payoff. For example, a ten-person, $20 buy-in tournament might award $100 to the first-place player, $60 for second-place, $40 for third, and nothing for lower places.
Proportional: Payouts are determined according to a percentage-based scale. The percentages are determined based upon the number of participants and will increase payout positions as participation increases. As a rule, roughly one player in ten will ‘cash’, or make a high enough place to earn money. These scales are very top-heavy, with the top three players usually winning more than the rest of the paid players combined.
Tournaments can be open or invitational. The World Series of Poker, whose final event (no limit Texas Hold ‘Em) is considered the most prestigious of all poker tournaments, is open.
Satellite tournaments to high-profile, expensive poker tournaments are the means of entering a major event without posting a signifcant sum of cash. These have significantly smaller buy-ins, usually on the order of one-tenth to one-fiftieth the main tournament’s buy-in. Top players in this event, in lieu of a cash prize, are awarded seats to the main tourney, with the number of places dependent on participation. Chris Moneymaker, who won the 2003 World Series of Poker, was able to afford his seat at this event by winning an Internet tournament with a $40 buy-in. Greg Raymer, 2004 World Series of Poker champion, acquired his seat via a $165 Internet tournament.
TitanPoker.com Guarantees $2,500,000 in Upcoming Online Poker Tournament
Leading online poker room Titan Poker will stage its biggest ever tournament in March with a huge $2,500,000 Guaranteed Prize Pool.
Titan Poker, the largest online poker room on the iPoker Network, is set to stage a $2,500,000 Guaranteed Prize tournament on March 8, 2009. TitanPoker.com players have already begun competing in Sit ‘N Go and Multi-Table Satellite tournaments to qualify for a seat in this monumental event.
Qualifying satellites to the $2,500,000 Guaranteed started recently at Titan Poker. These qualifiers start from as low as $1.20 to enter, so players can potentially win a share of $2,500,000 for an investment of just one dollar. Players that wish to skip the satellites can also buy-in directly to the Main Event and compete for the chance to win an opulent lifestyle in just one day of exhilarating game play.
The upcoming $2,500,000 Guaranteed tournament is just the latest in a series of record-breaking tournaments. Titan Poker previously staged a hugely successful $2,500,000 Guaranteed Prize tournament in September, 2008, and a $2,000,000 Guaranteed Prize tournament in March 2008.
A total of $4,717,900 was awarded to winning poker players during the 14 events of Titan Poker’s European Championship of Online Poker (ECOOP III) in November and December, 2008.
In addition to staging tournaments with huge guaranteed prize pools, Titan Poker also regularly awards its players with seats at the world’s most well-known poker tournaments, such as the Aussie Millions, the Irish Open, the Asian Poker Tour and World Series of Poker.
A poker tournament is a tournament at which the winners are decided by playing poker, usually a particular style of poker.
Contrast this to a ring game, where the game is ongoing with no formal structure to determine a single winner in a certain length of time.
Types of poker
While some tournaments offer a mix of games, like H.O.R.S.E. events which combine Hold’em, Omaha, Razz, Stud and Stud Eight or Better and Dealer’s Choice events, at which one may choose from a similar menu of games, most tournaments feature one form of stud or community card poker, such as seven-card stud, seven card high-low stud, Omaha Hold ‘em or Texas Hold ‘em. Both Omaha and Texas Hold’em tournaments are commonly offered in fixed-limit, pot limit, and no limit forms.
Tournament venues
Informal tournaments can be organized by a group of friends; for example, most colleges feature poker tournaments. Casinos and online gaming sites often offer daily tournaments.
However, these are not the only venues. Several World Poker Tour venues are cruise ships at sea. The 2005 World Series of Poker primarily took place in the conference hall of the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas.
Major tournaments
The two largest and most well-known tournaments are the World Poker Tour championship event and the World Series of Poker, held at Binion’s Horseshoe casino in Las Vegas. The World Series has traditionally been featured on ESPN.
The 2005 World Series of Poker was the first held outside of Binion’s Horseshoe Casino, though the final few days of the main event were held in the legendary Benny’s Bullpen. Future tournaments will be held at one of the Harrah’s Entertainment properties; 2005 saw the Rio as primary venue.
Arguably the most publicised European tournament is the Poker Million, which began in 2000 on Sky Sports, following on from the success of the Late Night Poker television show.
Johnny Moss, Becky Binion, and Puggy Pearson at the 1974 World Series of Poker
