Friday, August 14, 2009

World Poker Tour Season 8 Events

World Poker Tour season 8 started playing last month with 12 events that will be televised, down from 13 in season 7 and 20 in season 6. There is one new event: the Hollywood Poker Open, from the Hollywood Casino in Lawrenceburg, Indiana. Two events were dropped: the Foxwoods Poker Classic (one Foxwoods event remains) and the North American Poker Championship from Niagara. The Borgata Poker Open has an unusually-low $3,300 buyin (and overlaps with the WCOOP and WSOP Europe). There are an additional five non-televised European events sponsored by online poker sites.

Fox Sports Net has agreed to air season 8, but no airdates have been announced yet (update: it starts airing January 24). The new season will be broadcast in high definition. The company that is buying the World Poker Tour runs online poker sites that don't take US players (update: they sold to PartyGaming instead). The World Poker Tour hasn't announced a US TV sponsor for season 8 yet (Full Tilt Poker sponsored season 7), and I don't know what will happen with the US sponsorship situation (update: it will be sponsored by FTP). Since the WPT will be used primarily to market a non-US online poker site in the future I would expect it to become less US-centric.

The season 8 schedule (playing, not airing, schedule):

Tournament Name
Hosting Casino
Date
Buy-in
Bellagio Cup V
Bellagio
July 13 - 19
$15,000 +$400
Legends of Poker
The Bicycle Casino
Aug 22 – 26
$9,800 + $200
Borgata Poker Open
Borgata
Sept 19 - 24
$3,300 + $200
Festa al Lago
Bellagio
October 20 – 26
$15,000 +$400
Foxwoods World Poker Finals
Foxwoods
Nov 5 – 10
$9,700 + $300
Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic
Bellagio
Dec 13 – 19
$15,000 +$400
Southern Poker Championship
Beau Rivage, Biloxi, MS
Jan 24 - 27
$9,700 + $300
L.A. Poker Classic
Commerce
Feb 20 – Feb 25
$9,600 + $400
WPT Invitational
Commerce
Feb 27 – March 1
Invitation Only
Bay 101 Shooting Star
Bay 101, San Jose
March 8 – 12
$9,600 + $400
Hollywood Poker Open
Hollywood Casino, Lawrenceburg, IN
March 20 – 24
$9,600 + $400
WPT World Championship
Bellagio
April 17-24
$25,000 + $500

Update, additional tournament:
Grand Prix de Paris, Aviation Club de France, May 8-13, € 10,000

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3 comments:

  1. The WPT added Paris's Aviation Club back to the schedule. They last played there in 2006. The tournament will take place at the end of season 8 in 2010, and will be filmed for television.
    ReplyDelete
  2. Season 8 will be sponsored by FTP and broadcast in high definition according to a recent press release.
    ReplyDelete