European Poker Tour
The European Poker Tour (EPT) began in 2004 as part of the worldwide explosion in Texas Hold 'em popularity. It shows a series of poker tournaments similar to those in the World Poker Tour (WPT).
The most significant difference between the competing poker tours is the buyin and its effect on the prize pool, with the EPT featuring buyins about half the size of the WPT. The resulting effect upon the EPT is that it has less "star power" and lower cash prizes. Nevertheless, winners of the first two EPT events took home prizes in the $100,000 range, lucrative enough to attract many top competitors.
Furthermore, the final table is made up of 8 players, as opposed to the 6 player final tables popularised by the WPT.
The EPT is sponsored by PokerStars.com and taped for television broadcast in the United Kingdom by Sunset & Vine and Channel 4.
The tour was created by John Duthie, winner of the inaugural Poker Million tournament. Duthie commentates for the show, alongside Colin Murray. The show is hosted by Caroline Flack.
Notable Poker Players on the Tour
- Irish Andrew Black
- English Tony "The Lizard" Bloom
- English "Barmy" Barny Boatman
- English Garry "Whacker" Bush
- Welsh Dave "El Blondie" Colclough
- Swedish Martin "The Knife" De Knijff
- Austrian Ivo Donev
- Australian Tony G
- English John Gale
- English Julian "The Kid" Gardner
- Russian Kirill Gerasimov
- English Michael Greco
- Danish Gus "The Great Dane" Hansen
- Dutch Rob Hollink
- English John "Large" Kabbaj
- Russian Yevgeny Kafelnikov
- Dutch "The Flying Dutchman" Marcel Luske
Isabelle "No Mercy" Mercier- American Chris Moneymaker
- Irish Donnacha O'Dea
- Irish Padraig Parkinson
Pascal "Triple P" Perrault- English Xuyen "Bad Girl" Pham
- American Greg "Fossilman" Raymer
- English John Shipley
- English Willie "The Dice Man" Tann
- English Dave "The Devilfish" Ulliott
- English Ram "Crazy Horse" Vaswani
- Cypriot Charalambos "Bambos" Xanthos
