World Poker Tour Season Highlights

The first season of the immensely popular World Poker Tour has now been completed with great fanfare. In fact, due to the high ratings on the Travel Channel (it was the network's highest-rated show this season), three hours of additional airtime were added to the first season.

In addition to the 13 final tables that were filmed all over the world, the Travel Channel added a one-hour special called World Poker Tour: A Poker Primer, which was a proverbial Poker 101, teaching the basics of the game such as strategy, vocabulary, proper betting, and bluffing. Actor and poker player Lou Diamond Phillips hosted this show. A two-hour special, The World Poker Tour: Road to the Championship, featuring highlights from the first season recently aired, as well.

So, now is a great time to reminisce over some interesting statistics and to provide highlights pertaining to the WPT.

Two separate players each won more than $1 million during the first season. Gus Hansen took home $1,063,670 between his first-place victories at both Bellagio and Commerce Casino. Alan Goehring won $1,011,886 by capturing first place in the WPT Championship at Bellagio.

The total prize pool awarded to the 67 final-table contestants during the season was $9,889,367. Rounding out the top-10 list of WPT money winners behind Hansen and Goehring were Phil Ivey ($619,993), Dave "Devilfish" Ulliott ($589,990), Howard Lederer ($584,250), Christer Johannsson ($539,950), Kirill Gerasimov ($506,625), Layne Flack ($286,900), John Juanda ($278,240), and Chris Karagulleyan ($258,000).

Television viewers got to see many players make more than one final-table appearance. Phil Ivey impressed us all by making the final table at three different events. In addition, two players (Howard Lederer and Gus Hansen) won both times they made the final table. Players who made the final table twice include Scotty Nguyen, Chris Bigler, Kathy Liebert, Phil Hellmuth, Layne Flack, Andy Bloch, and Ron Rose. Congratulations on such stellar performances!

You may be wondering which event had the biggest prize pool. The WPT Championship at Bellagio took the first-place honor here, as the $25,000 buy-in event yielded a prize pool of $2,691,750.

Which tournament took the longest to play the final table, and which was the shortest? The Aviation Club in France started its final table at 8 p.m. A dinner break was called from 10 p.m. to 11:30 p.m., and the champion wasn't crowned until about 5 a.m. Let's just say that it was a long night for the producer, cameraman, spectators, and players. The quickest final table took place at The Bicycle Casino, with the winner Chris Karagulleyan claiming victory in less than three hours.

What was the favorite game played in WPT events? Obviously, it was no-limit hold'em, as this was the game of choice for 12 out of the 13 events. The only exception was the PartyPoker.com Million II, which employed limit hold'em in its big event.

Now, let's do away with statistics for a while and talk about the more human side of the WPT.

Linda Johnson, who served as an announcer for the studio audience in all 13 events, noted that there were no dealer errors made during the filming of any of the events. The dealers were terrific, despite the huge pressure of having to work under bright lights in front of large audiences, and dealing for lots of money. In fact, not many of them showed any signs of nervousness or anxiety. Well done, dealers!

The players also are to be congratulated for their good sportsmanship at the table. There was not one penalty given throughout any of the final tables. They dressed nicely and were very willing to show their cards to the cameras, despite giving away a bit of their strategies by doing so.

And a special thank you goes out to the studio audiences who watched all of the action live in the WPT arena during the filming of the shows.

The second season of the WPT will begin filming in July at the Aviation Club in Paris. To find out more about the tournament schedule and how to become involved with the World Poker Tour, go to the WPT website at www.worldpokertour.com.