One of the reasons for poker’s growing popularity stems from the valuable contributions made by the World Poker Tour. Although the company has had a rough go of it financially, they have earned their place in poker history with their use of the hole card cam.
Debuting in 2002, the World Poker Tour is a traveling tournament series that is taped for television. Featuring amazing venues such as the Bellagio in Las Vegas, Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa in Atlantic City, Bratislava, Slovakia, Venice, Italy and Barcelona, Spain.
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Well-known for their $10,000 buy-ins, the WPT tournaments have crowned numerous million dollar champions including Gus Hansen, Alan Goehring, Barry Greenstein, Carlos Mortensen, Daniel Negreanu, Erick Lindgren, Freddy Deeb, Howard Lederer. Michael Mizrachi and Tuan Le.
Several players have won more than $4 million since the tour’s inception eight years ago. Leading the way is Daniel Negreanu with $5,555,935. He is followed by Carlos Mortensen ($5,260,360), Tuan Le ($4,514,063), Michael Mizrachi ($4,168,766) and the “Great Dane” Gus Hansen ($4,051,782).
There are several players who continue to dominate the WPT action. Leading the way is 2009 November Nine winner Phil Ivey with eight final table appearances. He is followed by Daniel Negreanu (7), David “The Dragon” Pham (7), Gus Hansen (7), Scotty Ngyuen (7), John Juanda (6), Kathy Liebert (6), Barry Greenstein (5), Hoyt Corkings (5) and Ted Forrest (5).
Although the WPT competes with the World Series of Poker for poker dominance, both tournament series have proved invaluable to the sport as their episodes have been broadcast around the globe. This has helped the game’s popularity immensely and it continues to be one of the main reason why the sport has found a large international following.
One example of this is the WPT’s popularity in France. Despite being a U.S. program, the WPT’s successful marketing of the show in France has made the poker program more popular there than it is in the United States.
