Among casino games, live poker offers the most level playing field.
Unlike blackjack, craps, roulette and slot machines, where the odds are tilted in favor of the house, everyone at a poker table has an equal chance of winning when the cards are shuffled and dealt.
And, when the last bet is made and the final card turned, it is skill -- knowing when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em -- and, of course, luck that determine who walks away smiling and who limps away with a lighter wallet and a bruised ego.
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The tour, which currently has 14 events at casinos in New Jersey, Connecticut, Nevada, California, Mississippi, Europe, the Caribbean, and even on board cruise ships, is open to virtually anyone. Players gain entry by either buying into a tournament (buy-in fees range from several thousand dollars to $25,000), or by winning a seat in small satellite tournaments where the entry fees are nominal, often as low as $25. Several WPT events offer first-place prizes of $1 million.
Steve Lipscomb, a Dartmouth graduate who founded the WPT, said the combined prize money offered in the current 2003-04 season's series of tournaments is $30 million, triple that of the inaugural season.
Aspiring cardsharps who hope to stare down the likes of poker champs T.J. Cloutier, Scotty Nguyen and Annie Duke can enter satellite tournaments at casinos that are also the sites of major events -- such as the Borgata in Atlantic City, the Bellagio in Las Vegas, and Foxwoods in Connecticut -- or at smaller casinos around the country. A third way, one that's becoming increasingly more common, is by playing poker online on poker Web sites.
The winner of last year's World Series of Poker, which is not a WPT event, was a 27-year old accountant from Tennessee named Chris Moneymaker (that's his real name), who qualified for that event by playing online.
The unknown-to-champ online phenomenon happens on the WPT as well.
Mike Sexton, a color commentator for the WPT's televised events as well as a consultant to poker Web sites, says many legal issues associated with online poker, where players can compete for either play money or real money, remain "in a gray area." However, no one has ever been prosecuted for participating in online poker games, Sexton said, and the wide-open practice seems to be growing exponentially, with tens of thousands of players participating daily.
Adding luster to the fledgling poker tour have been some quick celebrity associations. Hollywood's Ben Affleck, Lou Diamond Phillips, James Woods, and Ed Asner have been competitors, and there's already a WPT television spinoff of a celebrity poker game, with the winnings going to charity.
Among the more festive stops on the WPT is one promoted by a poker Web site, PartyPoker.com. The site's PartyPoker.com MillionTournament is a weeklong poker cruise along the Mexican Riviera on Holland America cruise line's Ryndam, March 13-20. More than 500 competitors will play for a share of $3 million in prize money, including $1 million for first place.
"We have the entire ship chartered just for the players and their guests," Sexton said. "Besides the tournament, the poker room will be open 24 hours a day."
About 60 players on board will be full-time professionals who will pay their own $7,500 buy-in tournament fee and cruise expenses. But about 90 percent of the players will be ordinary folks who will have qualified for the tournament online, Sexton said, a distinction that exempts them from having to pay the buy-in fee, and earns them a free cruise for two.
"You ought to see players when they come on board," Sexton said. "They're lit up like Christmas trees rubbing elbows with the poker stars they've seen on TV. Everyone who sees the show thinks, 'I can play that good, let me take a shot at this.' And when a little guy actually does it, that's super, because it shows that anybody can win."
Source: Bill Ordine, Knight Ridder Newspapers
