Evolution of the PokerStars.com European Poker Tour - Part III

Between season’s one and two of the PokerStars.com European Poker Tour, Duthie, a formidable poker player himself who in 2000 won £1 million at the first Poker Million, made the final table of the $3,000 no-limit hold’em event at the World Series of Poker.

Shortly afterwards Duthie explained to Card Player Europe how the tour was developing: “The most significant difference of the EPT next season is the increase in the minimum buy-in from €2,000 to €4,000, a natural progression that should attract the high rollers without excluding the poker masses. Also, the Austrian event has been switched from the Concord Card Casino in Vienna to Baden, 30 kilometers south of the Austrian capital. Baden is one of Europe's most elegant and historic casinos.

He also outlined his goals for the future: “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.”

However with hopes for season two soaring sky high organizers and players alike were brought back to earth with a bump as stop one on the tour, Barcelona, descended into chaos.

Conrad Brunner, head of PokerStars communications wrote in Card Player Europe at the time: “The problem was with the event's unexpected popularity. The season one event had 227 runners for a €1,000 tournament, and despite raising the buy-in to €4,000, the organisers were hoping for a similar turnout in season two. Instead, they had 325 runners, with several more disappointed players unable to secure a seat.

“The organizers put their hands up and admitted that the wave of players took them by surprise, and that they'd made a mistake in not clearly announcing a cap well in advance. If they had correctly anticipated the numbers, they surely would have made Barcelona a three-day tournament. As it happened, the two-day tournament ended up with a faster structure than was appropriate for a €4,000 buy-in event.

“I must say that we really tried to please everybody, and we worked our socks off that week in Barcelona,” said EPT Tournament Director Thomas Kremser. “In the end, we got all but four players from the waiting list into the tournament. I don't think anybody could have expected that many runners for a buy-in that was four times bigger than the year before."

"There were far more players than anticipated, and this meant that the structure had to be speeded up in order for us to finish on time," explained EPT supremo John Duthie. "It was this that led us to completely rethink the structures, so, in effect; something good has come out of it."

In the next installment of our trip down EPT memory lane we look at how, from the chaos of Barcelona, the EPT grew in confidence and stature to firmly stamp its mark on European poker.

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