In The Words of John Duthie: The European Poker Tour and the Future of Televised Poker

Eighteen months ago, a new series of televised poker tournaments started in Europe – the European Poker Tour (EPT). The man behind the series was John Duthie, winner of the inaugural Poker Million – the first-ever major televised tournament in which the players' holecards could be seen. A successful player and an executive producer at a TV company, he was the perfect person to start the series. With the World Poker Tour making waves across the pond, John knew he had to act fast, before the Americans could get their feet in the door. Within no time, the EPT had established itself as an important and integral part of European poker, and the Eurosport broadcasts received excellent ratings in the first season – much better than both the EPT and Eurosport itself had expected. You'd think that John could now sit back and rest on his laurels, but when I caught up with him at the Merrion Casino Club in Dublin, he convinced me that despite this success, he's still aiming higher and higher. The remainder of this story is in John's own words.

On the History of the EPT
The World Poker Tour had been hugely successful, and it became clear that its organizers wanted to expand into Europe. They already had made one or two attempts, but when they proved unsuccessful, I decided to jump in. I had an edge over them from the start: I knew the European market better than they did, I had a few contacts in important places, and I was also a TV executive. So, once I had convinced myself that this was something that I really wanted to start up, my job was to convince casinos that it would also be in their best interests to let us film the events they hosted. This was going to be an uphill struggle, as up till that point, filminginside a casino had been strictly forbidden.



I had a great relationship with the Vic in London, and I got them on board quickly. Then, once I'd signed PokerStars as the sponsor, and Eurosport agreed to broadcastthe shows, other European venues started to realize that something special was happening,and they followed suit. This occurred despite the fact that the countries all had laws, or gaming boards, that would oppose the plans. The presence of a commercial sponsor was another reason for some casinos to be somewhat fearful to jump on the wagon.



Eventually, we managed to get started in September 2004, with the Vic in London, the Merrion Club in Dublin, the Concord in Vienna, and the Gran Casino Barcelona all on board. I also wanted to include the Dutch Master Classics, as well, but to this day I haven't been able to get the organizers to sign up. We also had the Aviation Club in Paris on the provisional list. All in all, we did not have many venues at that point, but I knew that once we started, many more would want to join, and that's what happened.



As I chat, it all seems so easy, but the truth was that it was a real struggle to pull it off. In Europe, we faced problems that just don't exist in America. Here, the various states have laws and gaming boards that are opposed to everything that is just the slightest bit new. So, for instance, we're unable to host cash games in places like Deauville and Monte Carlo; now, obviously, this is bad for the players and for the organization. Italy, one of the places that belongs on this Tour, has a Catholic Church that is a very powerful force – and, unfortunately, is not very supportive when it comes to the hosting of what it considers to be large gambling events.



What's more, Europe simply lacks enough venues that are large enough to host major events, whereas the Americans have ample numbers of big casinos with spacious ballrooms, and sufficient numbers of tables and dealers. Again, because of legislation, we are not allowed to simply host an event in large buildings that have no gaming history, so we face space limitations on an almost constant basis. Because we still want to accommodate, say, 300 to 500 players per event, from now on, the EPT will consist of three-day events played over four days, with half the field starting on day one, and the other half on day two. The result will be much more player-friendly structures, although it's still not the perfect solution, in which larger venues would let us "save" those extra days.



On the Venues, Structures, and Players

We took a lot of criticism about the chaos in Barcelona at the start of the second season. That criticism wasn't unfounded. The truth is that because there had been only 180 runners in Barcelona in the first season, for a €1,000 buy-in, we just didn't imagine that with the buy-in raised to €4,000, things would get that busy. I would have been very happy with about 200 or 220 players, but as it turned out, we could have had double that!



Given the size of the venue in Barcelona, 270 players was the absolute maximum we could handle. With so many more players than seats, things got pretty ugly, and because it was just a two-day event with so many players, the luck factor became way too high for an event of this stature. We've had to learn from this, and it won't happen again. I know that many players love the spacious and historical venues in Baden and Deauville, for instance. Now, I'm aiming for the EPT to grow along these lines, with venues that are both player-friendly and TV-friendly, and with structures that will decrease the luck factor. This way, we should be able to see the same faces reach final tables more often.



However, this does not automatically mean these finalists should be "familiar faces," or even "old-time pros." Many young players nowadays have played so many hands on the Internet, in so little time, that they are as experienced as their older rivals. In addition, these young guns are, almost without exception, very smart and very aggressive; all in all, they're serious threats to the well-known pros, who will simply have to adapt to these changes. Young players like Patrik Antonius and Bengt Sonnert play at a very high level, and there are many others like them who should not be considered "upsets" when they make a final table.

On Playing Poker

If I am honest, my heart is still more with playing poker than with things like organizing, negotiating, and politics. As is the case with many others who, like me, are capitalizing on the current poker boom by taking on new ventures and sponsorship deals, writing columns, or appearing on TV, these activities take away a lot of time that, quite frankly, we could prefer to spend at the tables. I still try to play as often as possible, but it is not nearly as much as I would like.



The fact that I was the player who won the first major event in which the holecards were shown live on TV has obviously helped the success of the EPT tremendously, for the simple reason that so many people had seen that show.



While in the first few days of the Poker Million I played a solid and somewhat risk-averse strategy, I knew that for the final day, I needed to change my game plan considerably. The final table was sixhanded, and if I'd have waited for good hands, I never would have been able to win it. So, I decided to take advantage of my solid image, and I managed to win four or five key pots on stone-cold bluffs. This was a rather bold and reckless way to play, but I was lucky that none of my opponents had enough of a hand to call me. You could say that my timing was great, and this was true to a large extent, but I also was lucky that I didn't run into a big hand at any stage.



Even after the final was over, some of my opponents were still convinced that I had played a solid game – until they saw the TV show, of course, where they could see the absolute junk that I had been raising with!



On the Future of the EPT

I hope that we can continue to work with Eurosport, because I see them as an ideal, natural platform to broadcast the shows around Europe. My plan is to get the shows even closer to primetime than they already are, while still keeping the current one-hour format. If, for whatever reason, this doesn't work out, we will be forced to sell the program to separate stations, but that's not the way I want this to work. Eurosport's involvement is a great uniting factor, and my guess is that the growth of the EPT could be seriously hampered if we lose that.



My goal is to make the EPT truly European. It has not been easy to get a venue in Scandinavia, again because of legal issues, but we've now found a great place in Copenhagen. I would like to add Germany and the Baltic States to the Tour, and, finally, I want Italy to be included. This may be one of the biggest challenges of all; as we speak, an Italian poker event has just been raided by the police. Ultimately, I hope that the EPT will comprise 10 to 12 annual events.



I want the venues to be as spacious and elegant as possible. For this reason, we have made some major changes with regard to the upcoming Grand Final in Monaco. The event will be staged in an entirely new resort: the Monte Carlo Bay Resort. This is a great space, located right down by the beach, with every hotel room overlooking the sea, and with a club, restaurant, and spa. We're taking over the hotel for the event, which should be great news for the poker players. Because of all of this, I expect anywhere from 300 to 400 players, making this one of the biggest events in the history of European poker. I'd love to be able to host cash games there, too, but, obviously, there's a whole lot of politics involved, so I cannot give any kind of guarantees in that respect. But, I would be lying if I said I would not give things my all to try to pull it off.

Despite all this talk about business, it should be clear that without the players, the EPT is nothing. In the U.S., if you see how much money Harrah's takes out of the prize pool, making big bucks while not giving much back to the players, it should be clear that this is not the way I like to do things. My intention is to try to get the best possible deals for the players in the future. I will try to get added money from separate sponsors, so that a tournament is not a zero-sum, or even a negative-sum, game anymore. As always, this is a bit of a struggle, but it's something I feel very strongly about. The EPT has become a smashing success because of the players, and I will do my best to give them what they are entitled to.

Leslie John Duthie,47, studied communications, arts, and public media in college, and was a fairly successful poker player when he won the inaugural Poker Million event. From there, he used his role as a TV executive and his contacts at the various casinos to set up a series of televised poker events around Europe, the European Poker Tour. John now lives in London, the location of the first-ever EPT event.