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 Introduction  IntroductionSeasons Season 1Season 2Season 3Season 4Season 5Season 6Season 7              
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WORLD POKER TOURThe World Poker Tour (WPT) is a series of poker tournaments featuring many of the world's professional players. It was started by producer Steve Lipscomb, who now served as CEO of WPT Enterprises (WPTE), the company that owns the World Poker Tour. The WPT started in 2002 and was first broadcasted on the Travel Channel during the spring of 2003. The Travel Channel aired the first five seasons of the Tour. After five seasons the series moved to GSN and remains on the most highest-rated shows on cable.The broadcasting of the show helped ignite the explosion in the popularity of poker due to a few reasons. One reason was that the show popularized the techinique of letting home viewers see the players' hole cards with tiny cameras. Previous to this innovation, televised poker (mostly older World Series of Poker events) only allowed viewers to see the community cards. It goes without saying that these games were less exciting to watch. Another reason the WPT was popular was because of popularity the hosts. Mike Sexton and Vince Van Patten commentated on the game while Shana Hiatt interviewed the players. |