WPT Inaugural Professional Poker Tour Gets Underway
Six advance to PPT final table on November 19th
Monday 15th November 2004
The World Poker Tour’s first ever Professional Poker Tour (open only to pro players) got underway at Foxwood’s November 9-10. The tournament is the first of five free-rolls offering a total sponsored prize pool of $2.5 million over the 2004-2005 Season. While many of the world’s top players were competing, only six made it through to the final: Chris Bigler, Jennifer Harman, Daniel Harrington, John Juanda, Casey Kastle, and Ron Rose will compete on November 19th for $200,000 and a $25,000 seat to the WPT World Championship.
According to a WPT spokesperson, winning will be like ‘saying you won the first PGA tournament in history, or ensnared the first Wimbledon title.’
The next stops on the tour will be the Commerce Casino, the Bellagio, and The Mirage. To be eligible to play on the PPT, players must have proven themselves in past poker competition by ‘winning or making a Final Table at a WPT event or a WPT Championship, by scoring as a top 10 point leader in WPT Player-of-the-Year rankings, by winning or placing highly in the $10K buy-in event at the World Series of Poker, by securing a spot on either CardPlayer Magazine's Card Player of the Year Top 10 list or Poker Europa's Top 10, or by being a member of the Poker Hall of Fame.’
