If you were to stick lab rats into a room full of poker TV shows and gave them the remote control, you would learn that the World Poker Tour (WPT) is one of poker’s most potent gateway drugs.
So when they realised to survive the pandemic they would have to move operations online, they picked partypoker to be the salt cellar for their salt.
So what happens when you shift the upmarket WPT, online?
You get an upmarket online experience.
partypoker hosts the WPT World Online Championships from Friday, July 17 to Wednesday, September 9, guaranteeing an asthma attack-inducing $100m in prize money.
But you knew that, right?
What you didn’t know, is that the WPT and partypoker have struck a deal with their live event partner ShareHand to recreate the live experience during the online championships.
The Deal
ShareHand is the wizard behind the beautiful production of the WPT, MILLIONS and Triton Poker Super High Roller Series live tournaments. If they can create a tenth of the value they bring to the live operation we will fall in love with it no matter what hovel we watch it from.
ShareHand will produce the final table of the 12 championship events, all of which will stream live on partypokerTV, partypoker’s Twitch channel, partypoker.com, YouTube and Facebook.
The action at the final table will showcase cards face-up with a short delay, and real name will replace online pseudonyms. The winners of the five WPT Championship Cup events will earn a seat into the WPT Champions Club.
Commentary
Commentary comes from the best in the business. partypoker’s Mike Sexton gets reacquainted with his old pans Vince van Patten and Tony Dunst, and James Dempsey, Joey Ingram, and Matt Savage join with the latter taking the focal role during the WPT Championship Cup events.
An array of partypoker ambassadors will guest star in the commentary booth including Jason Koon, Roberto Romanello, Sam Trickett, Ludovic Geilich and Isaac Haxton.
Outside of the English stream, the chinwag comes from Dmitry Shakhov and Ilya Gorodetskiy (Russian); Stefan Hachmeister and Christian Gross (German); Gaston Catzman and Santiago Garcia (Spanish); and Marcos Sketch and Thiago Crema De Macedo (Portuguese).
James Dempsey and Henry Kilbane will supplement the WPT Championship coverage by focusing on the side event action two to four times per week during the festival, screening on partypokerTV.
Ship out the rats.
Plugin those mice.