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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:

• Winner: 1000 points
• Runner-up: 700 points
• 3rd place: 600 points
• 4th place: 500 points
• 5th place: 400 points
• 6th place: 300 points
• 7th place (TV bubble): 200 points

This award is given out to one player per season.

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.

Record winnings

Regular Events

WPT Championships

Links

• Offical site
• Official forum and community site
• World Poker Tour Event Reports
• SEC probing top poker player’s bid for WPT (article on Doyle Brunson’s bid for WPT)

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

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:

1. 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).
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

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Etiquette in a public cardroom is fairly simple.

• A simple faux pas is to not act in accordance with the cardroom’s rules. For example, to raise, one typically places all the chips, those to call (if any) and the raise in one motion; you cannot do two hand gestures (this is called a string raise), unless you state your intentions prior to placing chips.
• Cards are to be face-down to other players until showdown. If you fold, you hand in your cards face-down. If you are in the hand until showdown, you turn up your cards if either you are first to show (last person to raise shows first) or if your hand is superior to the hands previously exposed. Do not expose cards prior to showdown; depending on local rules, this may mean a comittment to check all raises or you may forfeit the hand.
• If you are requested to cease an activity by a dealer or any other representative of the cardroom, cease that activity.
• Damaging cards is both fairly difficult (because most places use cellulose-acetate cards which are hard to mark, scratch, and bend, and last approximately five years in daily play) and forbidden.
• Don’t blame the dealer for a string of bad hands. Don’t ask the dealer to “switch decks”. This may annoy the other players and it will slow down gameplay.
• Speak only English in an American cardroom. If they can’t understand you, they may assume you are in collusion with someone.
• Turn off your cell phone, or set it to vibrate mode. Do not pick it up during game play. If you pick it up, there’s the possibility you are receiving information that may provide a clue to the other players’ hands, and are therefore cheating.
• Keep your food and drinks off the table. The table is for playing cards and poker chips, not soda pop and potato chips. You have small stands around the tables to hold beverages and food. Food at the table, though, is not recommended if it leaves a residue on your hands. Sandwiches OK, BBQ ribs and fried chicken, no.
• Cheating is right out. Having said that, do not accuse other players of being cheaters. If you are wrong (most likely), you will make an unnecessary scene and end up tossed from the room. If you’re right, the cameras above you will catch the guy in the act for you.
• You cannot buy more chips while a round is in progress.
• Failing to call out, “all-in” when you are is a minor issue.
• All your chips must remain on the table during play. You may not remove chips from the table to your pockets, or vice versa.
• Remember when you must pay forced bets, such as blinds in Texas Hold ‘em and Omaha Hold ‘em.
• Keep the game play flowing. By the time the bet comes round to you, you should know what your course of action is. Calling for “time” when you have a difficult decision to make is acceptable as long as you don’t take excessively long or do this very often.
• Remember, the cards speak for themselves. When the hand is over, don’t overstate your hand in an effort to cause an opponent to throw away a better hand. Also, don’t throw away your own hand until your opponent shows a better hand; he might not have read this etiquette page, and could be lying about having a straight flush. The dealer is the adjudicator of each round.
• Knocking the table is a check, tossing your cards is a fold. Saying “Check” or knocking the table is the same thing. Placing your chips down without a spoken amount commits you to the full value of the laid chips or the table maximum, whichever applies. Calling a raise means following through.
• The most important thing: NEVER EVER PLAY WITH MONEY YOU CAN’T AFFORD TO LOSE.

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

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.

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

Video: Poker Tournament Strategy Videos

People can play poker at public cardrooms. While the rules of the tables can change from casino to casino, most have similar rules and regulations.

Records

Some casinos keep records of the players at each table. This is done to help manage limited table space. During peak periods (Friday night), there may be a waiting list for poker seats. Players can get on multiple waiting lists (different types of games and money amounts) to help secure a space.

Chips

Some casinos will players buy their chips at the table, while others require players to have them already exchanged from the cashier elsewhere in the casino.

Betting

Betting rules at each casino vary based on blinds and antes. In some games, not everyone antes every hand, thus making it possible to fold early for “free”.

The betting system used by most casinos is what is commonly called “blind tiger”. In hold’em, the player to the left of the imaginary dealer (signified by a button) places a small blind bet regardless of his hand. Then, the player to the left of the small blind places a big blind bet. The blind amounts vary: an example would be $3 for the small blind and $6 for the big blind. The person to the left of the big blind would then start the betting; he would have to either match the big blind bet or raise to a larger amount.

In Stud, everyone places a small ante after getting their starting cards. Then, the player with the low exposed card usually has a forced initial bet. The ante is a smaller amount than the bet of the person with the low card (about 40% of a betting unit). Resulting players would have to match that bet or raise to a larger amount.

The maximum betting or raising amounts depend on the limits placed in. In limit poker, a player can only raise the amount of the big blind initially. The maximum amount of raises per street (card placed by dealer) is usually 3 to 4. The betting or raising amount usually doubles in later streets.

With no-limit poker, a person can bet the total number of chips he has at the table at any time. In pot-limit poker, a person can bet as much as the amount of chips at the pot.

Profitability of poker for casinos

Casinos make a relatively slim profit margin on the game. Whereas slot machines provide a substantial house percentage, poker tables require dealers, waitresses, cigarette girls, and a manager to keep everything running smoothly. The house supports this with a “rake” (a percentage taken from every pot). This can range from 5%-10%; usually with higher rake games, a limit is placed on how much the house can rake (10% with a limit of $5).

With the recent upsurge in poker’s popularity, more casinos offer live poker. They make money both from the rake and from attracting people to the casino, where they may play other games (craps, roulette, etc.)

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

Video: Asian Poker Tour Manila – First look at the cardroom

The following is a list of standard equipment needed for a game of poker:

• Cards: Standard Anglo-American playing cards are used. In home games it is common to have two decks with distinct backs, and to shuffle the unused deck while each hand is in progress. Casinos typically change decks after 15 minutes of use, because the quality of the cards declines with each shuffling. For friendly home environments, this is not an issue, but some dealers can perform intentionally corrupt shuffles even with a lightly-worn deck. Poker players are advised to have at least one “back-up” deck on hand to replace decks with worn, soiled, or bent cards. High-quality plastic-coated cards can be purchased for approximately $3.00, and last much longer than paper cards.

In some poker games, particularly stud poker it is not unusual for cards to become bent quickly, as players often read their “hole” cards by peeking at the corner rather than lifting the card. Card quality can be preserved for longer if players agree not to bend cards, and proper shuffling techniques are used.

Rarely, multiple decks are used in poker; however, this noticeably alters the game. Using additional decks will make certain hand configurations significantly more common than they are in single-deck poker.

• Poker Chips: Currency is difficult to stack or handle, so most poker games are played with chips, or coin-shaped tokens of uniform size and weight, usually 39mm wide and anywhere from 5 to 16 grams in weight, whose money value is determined by their color. Traditionally, poker chips were made of bone; however, modern casino chips are often made of clay. Clay chips (which can cost as much $1.70 per chip, or $850 for a set of 500) are considered the most upscale variety of poker chip. Another high-end variety of chips are ceramic chips, ceramic chips that can be customized easily cost around $1 per chip. Plastic chips are also available, at a wide variety of quality levels.

The standard color scheme for poker chips is as follows: $1 chips are white; $5, red; $10, blue; $25, green; $100, black; $500, purple; $1000, orange; $5000, gray; $10000, pink. There is no requirement that casinos use these colors, and there is much variance regarding the colors used for denominations above $100.

• Poker Table: A typical poker game will have between two and ten players. For the sake of convenience, each player should be able to reach the central pot, so circular or oblong tables are best. A soft table top is preferred to facilitate picking up chips and cards.

• Lammers: Lammers are plastic, chip-shaped tokens with text written on them. Most commonly used is a “dealer button” with either the word “DEALER” or a “D” written on it; this item (also known as the buck) indicates who shall deal next. In a casino setting, lammers are also used to indicate which variant is being used, and whose turn it is to pay the blind.

• Cut card: This is a thick plastic card, the same size and shape of a playing card. The dealer will place the deck upon this card before dealing, in order to prevent the accidental exposure of the bottom card of the deck. While rarely used in home games, the cut card is universal in casino play.

• Timer: If playing a poker tournament, a timer is used to count down periods in which the blinds are at certain levels. When the timer reaches 0:00, the blinds go up, and if chips are no longer useful (say, the blinds have gone up to $25 and $50, so $5 chips aren’t needed any more), the unneeded chips are converted to higher valued ones.

• Card protectors:: In games where all of a player’s cards are facedown, some players use items like specialty chips or glass figures to place on top of their cards to protect them from being accidentally discarded.

Purchasing poker equipment

For most home games, high-quality plastic poker chips, still cheaper than clay chips, will suffice, though casinos generally prefer clay, considered the most authentic type of chip. Tables should have a soft surface; hard-surfaced “poker tables” are generally no more convenient than a standard dining table with a poker cloth. Card decks of reasonable quality can be purchased for about $3 a piece, and it’s best to have at least three of them on hand.

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

Video: Poker Equipment