Season XVII of the World Poker Tour is going to look like no season ever before it. As part of the WPT’s partnership with Esports Arena Las Vegas at Luxor Casino & Hotel, all televised final tables are moving to the original home of the World Poker Tour.

• World Poker Tour 2017 Final Tables
• World Poker Tour 2019 Final Table
• World Poker Tour 2017 Final Table Tennis
• World Poker Tour 2017 Final Tabletop

According to WPT CEO Adam Pliska and VP of Global Tour Management Angelica Hael, the number of final tables taking place at Esports Arena Las Vegas is nine: eight Main Tour events, plus the season-ending Tournament of Champions.

The World Poker Tour (WPT) is an international poker tournament series, created in 2002 where only the final table of each event was broadcasted on TV. The WPT was created by Steven Lipscomb, the CEO of World Poker Tour Enterprise, who was an attorney and TV producer. The final three tables, which comprised the final 27 players, played the conclusion of the event at Binion's Horseshoe. All of the Main Events that followed the 2005 event were played completely at the Rio. Consequently, this made Joe Hachem the final player to win the Main Event at the original home of the World Series of Poker. The World Poker Tour (WPT) is an internationally televised gaming and entertainment brand.Since 2002, the World Poker Tour has operated a series of international poker tournaments and associated television series broadcasting playdown and the final table of each tournament. After five days of play and a field of 888 entries in the World Poker Tour Sanya Main Event in the southernmost city on Hainan Island of China, Qian Zhi Qiang emerged victorious to take home the.

These events were not formally confirmed by the WPT at Saturday’s media summit at Luxor. All properties who are in line to have their final tables hosted at Esports Arena Las Vegas are pending state and Nevada Gaming License approval.

After final tables are reached, tournaments will be placed on a hiatus between the end of play at the host property and the final table in Las Vegas. The estimate is three to six weeks between play. Per the WPT, the goal is to have spans of final tables play out consecutively over a single week.

“It’s no secret that the home of global poker is here in Las Vegas,” said Hael. “In many respects, it makes perfect sense to move WPT final tables of televised events to be here. The move aims not to just take WPT to new heights, but to also elevate the game of poker as a whole. It is going to be a location where we can celebrate and honor our industry-leading events and also elevate the experience of our champions.”

New home for the WPT

Esports Arena Las Vegas is the modern hub for gaming, and now poker, on the Las Vegas strip. WPT’s parent company, Ourgame, owns multiple eSports arenas across the globe and opened Esports Arena Las Vegas in March 2018. Luxor is also an MGM Resorts property. MGM and the WPT are partners dating back to Season I.

Spectators are treated to a premier viewing experience for poker upon entering Esports Arena Las Vegas. The stage is a size that rivals Broadway with the production to match. 50-foot tall LED screens with the WPT logo stands behind the table with cyan lights scattered across the stage.

Players enter the arena through the ‘Hype Tunnel.’ A hallway striped with fluorescent lighting that conjures images of Blade Runner 2049.

The over $20 million investment to build Esports Arena Las Vegas reflects in the live action should do the same in the television episodes for Season XVII.

Pliska reflected this sentiment.

“The amazing blessing of this is it not only guarantees you’ll see this show for [up to] 15 more years, it looks better,” Pliska said. “There’s no question, it’s a sport. We’ve said it’s a sport and now we have the venue for it.”

Hael alluded comparing Esports Arena Las Vegas potentially being the iconic location for poker in a similar way to what Madison Square Garden is for basketball.

Break equals exposure

A goal of the World Poker Tour with their new playground is to boost the presence of their final tablists. During the break between tournament play at the host property and the final table, the projection is to give all six players a profile usually reserved for just the champion of the event.

“We are dedicated to promoting players going into this event because we know that their story needs to be told,” WPT Marketing Manager Donnie Peters said.

Season-long storylines for the major events are condensed into just a few weeks of poker. The Player of the Year race switches in a span of days instead of a yearlong grind to the finish line.

World Poker Tour 2017 Final Tables

Revamped schedule for Season XVII

“Our entire schedule has changed,” WPT Executive Tour Director Matt Savage said. “Because of this change, we’ve had to rearrange our entire schedule. Not only is it going to be a big change for the poker players, it’s going to be a change for us.”

All WPT Main Tour events in Season XVII that are going to be televised, are on hold to start until at least the end of the year.

The Borgata Poker Open in Atlantic City, NJ has long been a televised event on the WPT every September. The event is a candidate to be live streamed in Season XVII. This year’s Borgata Poker Open runs from September 16-21.

Season XVII opens at the Gardens Casino in Hawaiian Gardens, CA in with the $5,000 buy-in WPT Gardens Poker Festival. The event runs July 21-26. The casino first hosted the WPT in 2017 when the WPT500 Los Angeles tournament played.

World Poker Tour 2019 Final Table

WPT Choctaw returns August 3-7 in Durant, OK. The Season XVI edition was the first North American stop of the campaign and drew 924 entrants.

The Bicycle Hotel and Casino is not a Main Tour stop for the 2018 portion of the schedule. Legends of Poker is, for now, WPT500 Los Angeles with a $1 million guarantee starting August 18 and concluding on August 27.

Other familiar tour stops back on the schedule for 2018 are WPT Maryland (September 21-25), WPT bestbet Bounty Scramble (October 19-23), and the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic (December 10-15).

Season XVII WPT Schedule for 2018

Lead image courtesy of the World Poker Tour/Flickr

The 16th annual running of the World Poker Tour Legends of Poker main event at the Bicycle Hotel & Casino has lived up to its name. The $4,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em event drew a field of 763 total entries, the second largest turnout in the tournament’s history. From that sea of players now only six remain with a shot at the title and the $668,692 top prize, and among them are some of the biggest names in the game.

The chip leader heading into the final table is two-time WPT champion and two-time WSOP bracelet winner J.C. Tran with 8,295,000. The 40-year-old poker pro has more than $12.5 million in lifetime live tournament earnings. Joining Tran at the final table is Poker Hall of Famer Phil Hellmuth. The 14-time WSOP bracelet and 1989 main event winner is playing at his fifth WPT final table and is still looking for his first win on the tour. The 53-year-old will surpass the $21 million mark in career live earnings with a finish of fifth place or higher in this event. Joining these two legends of the game is German poker pro Marvin Rettenmaier. Like Tran, the 31-year-old is a two-time WPT maint champion looking to notch his third victory.

A total of 24 players returned for day 4 of this event, with Tran leading the way. Plenty of big names hit the rail as the tournament played down to a final table, including Allen Le (24th – $17,430), Garrett Greer (20th – $19,880), Tuan Le (19th – $19,880), Jason Les (17th – $22,685), David ‘ODB’ Baker (11th – $31,510) Oddie Dardon (9th – $43,570), Jared Griener (8th – $57,190) and David ‘Doc’ Sands (7th – $72,985).

Sands was eliminated on the bubble of the televised final table when he got all-in preflop with the KK against J.C. Tran’s AQ only to have Tran make quads on a QQ63Q board. With that the remaining players bagged up their chips for the night.

The final six players are all guaranteed at least $91,825 in this event with $668,692 for the champion. Play will resume at 4:00 p.m. local time with blinds of 40,000-80,000 with an ante of 10,000.

Here is a look at the chip counts heading into the final table:

World Poker Tour 2017 Final Table Tennis

World Poker Tour 2017 Final Tabletop

Photos courtesy of WPT/ Joe Giron.