The European Poker Tour (EPT) is another prime example of how big the internet poker boom actually is. The series of live tournaments across Europe are hosted by the biggest and most popular online poker room, PokerStars.com. They started hosting these televised live tournaments back in 2004 when poker began rapidly increasing in popularity worldwide.
The European Poker Tour is the brainchild of professional poker player John Duthie, who commentated for the show alongside Coling Murray during the first few seasons of the tour. In the middle of season 3, James Hartigan took over the commentary together with pro poker players Daniel Negreanu, Victory Coren and Greg Raymer.
The European Poker Tour TV show was presented by Croline Flack. In season 4 & 5 the stunning Kara Scott took over the role of presenter and has since been followed up by the smoking hot Michelle Orp, who is currently still the Hostess of the Show.
On March 6, 2010 the organization of the German EPT in Berlin was taken by surprise when 4 masked men armed with knifes and a hand gun tried to the rob the prize money. The robbers managed to get away with €242,000, which was only a small portion of the prize pool and luckily nobody got seriously injured. A few days after the robbery had taken place, one of the robbers had given himself over to the police and gave up the rest of his crew. They eventually all were caught and sentenced to 3 years in prison.
Out of all the players who competed in the 6th season of the European Poker Tour, 2,000 won their seat on PokerStars, a poker room we highly recommend when playing online poker. The combined winnings of these players exceeded in the millions. One of the the biggest returns on investment came from 23 year old EPT Grand Final winner Nicolas ‘niccc’ Chouity.
He too qualified for the EPT Grand Final in Monte Carlo after winning a $22 rebuy tournament on PokerStars. When he arrived in Monte Carlo, he just had some hope and dreams, but a few days later on his way back to Beirut, Lebanon he was €1.7 million richer. Not bad for a few days work in Monte Carlo.
If you want to follow the EPT make sure to check out your local TV guide, as the European Poker Tour is broadcast around the globe. Even if you can’t find a local station broadcasting the events you can tune in to the live webcasts found on PokerStars TV.