European Poker Tour - Europe's Biggest Poker TournamentThe European Poker Tour owes its huge success to the popularity of Texas Hold'Em. It was in 2004 that the EPT began, a time when Texas Hold'Em was becoming popular not only in land-based casinos but most especially in online casinos. EPT is a tournament comprised of a series of poker events, and this tour is also televised and brought to many audiences by Sunset + Vine. The main sponsor of the EPT is the PokerStars, which is considered to be the World Wide Web's biggest and most popular online poker room.
Brief History of European Poker TourAs stated above, it was in the year 2004 that the EPT was first launched. EPT was the brainchild of John Duthie, a television director in England who has a passion for poker. He played in the 2000 tournament of Poker Million on the Isle of Man and ended up as the winner, earning him a million pounds. From then on, he became an admired professional poker player in the poker circuit and is a member of the Team PokerStars, which is a group of professional poker players sponsored by PokerStars.Since he has a background in television as well as a good head in business, he capitalized on the popularity of Texas Hold'Em and launched the European Poker Tour, where he is also the EPT Series commentator along with Colin Murray. Since every season of EPT is televised, it only made Texas Hold'Em more popular in Europe. This, in turn, also made EPT Europe's biggest, richest, most popular, and most prestigious poker tournament. Now, EPT is being broadcasted to more than 40 countries all over the globe, rivaling even the United States most popular poker tournaments and attracting the world's popular poker players. One of the biggest events of the year is the EPT London with 2000+ people playing.
The Main Event and the Grand PrizesThe main event of EPT also consists of the no-limit Texas Hold'em poker game, similar to other major poker tournaments like the WSOP. Players have to shell out a €10,000 buy-in fee to get to the EPT's main event, held annually at Monte Carlo. Whoever wins the main event gets the title of the EPT Champion, and the major prize also reaches millions of Euros. Last year alone, the first prize reached 1.85 million euros, and the title and prize money went to Gavin Griffin of the United States of America who won a seat in EPT through PokerStars. He was also a WSOP bracelet winner.
Qualifying for a Seat in EPTIf you want to qualify for a seat in the EPT, you can register an account with PokerStars. Once you become a member, you can check the schedules of PokerStar's regular online poker satellite tournaments. In these satellite tournaments, you are going to play against eight other poker players in one table. If you ended up in the top two on that single table satellite tournament, you go on to the next level until you qualify for an entry into EPT. Aside from a seat in this prestigious poker tournament, the EPT package will also give you your buy-in into the tournament, an accommodation in a luxurious hotel, as well as a thousand dollars.
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