Titan Poker
Preview: The World Poker Tour was the brainchild of Steven Lipscomb. Lipscomb was a successful attorney who turned his business and social contacts into a career as a television producer. Based on the successes of the World Series of Poker, Lipscomb understood that the public was yearning for the elevation of Poker to a higher level within the sporting world.
WPT Reaches Major League Status
All major sports have a professional league wherein outstanding players are able to display their talents. Major League baseball has attendance figures in the multi-millions each season and culminates, after seven months of competition, with the World Series of Baseball. The National Football League attracts worldwide interest and the Super Bowl is always among the most watched sporting events of the year.
It was Lipscomb’s design that the best Poker players in the world would also have a forum in which they could display their talents. For Lipscomb, that forum was the World Poker Tour. Lipscomb did his homework before he leapt into action. In 2001 he noticed that the World Series of Poker winner, Juan Carlos Mortensen, took home $1.5 million for turning back 612 other competitors.
Lipscomb noted that the number of entries for the 2001 World Series of Poker rose almost 17% from the year before. Realizing that the time was ripe to make his move, Lipscomb began putting the pieces into place and, in 2002, the World Poker Tour took centre stage.
Television takes World Poker Tour to Major League
Lipscomb understood the importance of the visual image of the game. He developed contracts with cable network stations to televise the competition. Mike Sexton and Vince Van Patton were hired as announcers and new technology was employed in order to heighten the suspense of the game.
For the first time, hole cards were observed by the television audience through a hole in the Poker table. The commentary of Van Patton and Sexton in reference to the hole card plays were added subsequent to the completion of the game.
It was no surprise to anyone to discover that 155 of the Texas Hold’em Poker games in the World Poker tour went to the showdown round. Television captured all the excitement and suspense of the games during its initial season and the television ratings increased even more during the 2004 campaign.
Now finishing its 6th year, the World Poker Tour is a staple in cable network television and has the sponsorship support of major beer and automobile companies. There is a plan in the works for an upcoming movie based on the World Poker Tour, with the poker stars and commentators playing themselves. The scheduled name for the movie is “Deal.”
