On January 10th, 2009, the World Poker Tour's (WPT) subscription-based online poker, ClubWPT recently awarded its $2,000,000 prize money. It has been one of the main staples in the poker industry since its debut by the World Poker Tour, a publicly traded organization on the NASDAQ Stock Exchange.
In a 2008 calendar year that witnessed other subscription-based poker rooms like Zozos, Fleet Street Games and Duplicate Poker fall, ClubWPT has steadily grown. The online poker room features $100,000 in cash and tournaments each month, including poker and elimination blackjack events. The World Poker Tour has leveraged its own relationships in order to give Club World Poker Tour members several one-of-a kind opportunities.
For example, ClubWPT events can be found on Fox Sports Net, 10 six-handed tournaments have been shown in total, with participants winning their way in from the poker room. Last October 2008, Duplicate Poker also shut down its operations due to the financial crisis, according to the statement posted on its online at that time. Several weeks before the closure, the poker room registered its 250,000th player.
Duplicate Poker carved its niche in the gaming industry by dealing poker players seated in the same position at different poker tables the same cards. Each player was evaluated against one another depending on how many chips they produce in comparison to the other players seated at the same position. Aside from that, on October 31st, 2008, the Fleet Street Games also shut down its business.
The online room, which was owned by a former executive of PokerStars, continued to manage the PokerSchoolOnline, referring customers of Fleet Street Games to cash in their bankrolls in order to support subscriptions on the poker training online site. In December 2008, Zosoz, which is another subscription-based poker room, shut down their operations as well. Zosoz cited circumstances beyond their control as one of the reasons for the shutdown of their business. WPT recently debut its 7th season on Fox Sports Net during FSN's nationwide programming slots.
Air times differ by market, so interested viewers are encouraged to check their local listing for details. A channel finder is also scheduled to be launched on the online site of the WPT in the next few weeks in order to help fans in finding both ClubWPT and World Poker Tour programming. The members of ClubWPT can take advantage of the numerous satellites into World Poker Tour and WSOP events. Members can also receive web access to Bluff Magazine and the Las Vegas Advisor. Live chat customer service is also available for ClubWPT members as well as e-mail correspondence. A monthly $20,000 tournament is the main staple of the ClubWPT and was last held on December 30th, 2008.
Satellites for the January tournament run at 1:30 a.m., 8:00 a.m., 9:30 a.m., 12:30 p.m., 3:30 p.m. and 11:45 p.m. The top 10 finishers in each satellite event moves on to the final $20,000 poker events. Tournaments with a $1,000 cash pool happen everyday at 9:00 p.m. On Saturdays, an extra event is added in at 3:00 p.m. $500 elimination blackjack events takes place on Saturday nights at 8:15 p.m. ET and other real money events are also available.
WPT's live tournament series will travel next to the Beau Rivage in Biloxi, Mississippi for the Southern Poker Championships on January 14th, 2009 to January 17th, 2009. The Biloxi event will feature both a $10,000 WPT Main Event as well as a $5,150 Pot Limit Omaha Championship.
02/22/2009 19:32 PM