The European Poker Tour (EPT) is a series of

poker Poker is a family of comparing card games in which players wager over which hand is best according to that specific game's rules. It is played worldwide, however in some places the rules may vary. While the earliest known form of the game w ...

tournaments A tournament is a competition involving at least three competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses: # One or more competitions held at a single venue and concentr ...

similar to those in the

World Poker Tour 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 f ...

(WPT), created by John Duthie, winner of the inaugural

Poker Million The Poker Million has been a televised European poker tournament since its inception in November 2000. The final debuted to 30 million viewers and has since remained popular. It was created by UK gaming outfit Ladbrokes with the help of sports pro ...

tournament. It began in 2004 as part of the worldwide explosion in

Texas Hold 'em Texas hold 'em (also known as Texas holdem, hold 'em, and holdem) is one of the most popular variants of the card game of poker. Two cards, known as hole cards, are dealt face down to each player, and then five community cards are dealt fa ...

popularity. Since 2011 the EPT has been sponsored and wholly owned and controlled by

PokerStars PokerStars is an online poker cardroom that was a part of The Stars Group until it was sold to Flutter Entertainment on May 5, 2020. It can be accessed through downloadable poker clients for the Windows, macOS, Android and iOS. It is the large ...

the online casino and taped by Sunset + Vine for television broadcast across Europe. In seasons 1-3, the most significant difference between the competing poker tours was the

buy-in Buying in may refer to: *Buying in (poker), a tournament entrance fee *Buying in (securities), a process in which a buyer whose seller fails to deliver the securities contracted for, can "buy in" the securities from a third party *Management buy-i ...

and its effect on the prize pool, with the EPT featuring buy-ins about half the size of the WPT. This changed in season 4 when the buy-in for most EPT events was increased to

€ The euro sign () is the currency sign used for the euro, the official currency of the eurozone and unilaterally adopted by Kosovo and Montenegro. The design was presented to the public by the European Commission on 12 December 1996. It consists ...

8,000 (due to increased popularity and lack of space in participating casinos). At 2007 exchange rates, this is approximately equal to the

US$ The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

10,000 which is the buy-in for most WPT events. Furthermore, the final table is made up of 8 players, as opposed to the 6 player final tables popularised by the WPT. For the first couple of seasons, Duthie commentated for the show alongside

Colin Murray Colin Murray (born Luke Wright on 10 March 1977) is a Northern Irish radio and television presenter. In 2010, he became host of BBC Television's '' Match of the Day 2'' on BBC Two, while still anchoring shows on BBC Radio 5 Live, including '' 5 ...

. Since the middle of Season 3,

James Hartigan James Edward Hartigan (born in Carshalton, South London) is an English journalist and broadcaster who is best known as a poker commentator on British and American television, and as a presenter and film critic on London talk radio station LBC. ...

has been the lead commentator, with professional players

Greg Raymer Gregory Raymer, nicknamed "Fossilman," is a professional poker player and author. He is best known for winning the 2004 World Series of Poker Main Event. Early life Raymer's family moved numerous times during his childhood, from his birthplace ...

Daniel Negreanu Daniel Negreanu (; born July 26, 1974) is a Canadian professional poker player who has won six World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelets and two World Poker Tour (WPT) championship titles. In 2014, independent poker ranking service Global Poker ...

and

Victoria Coren Mitchell Victoria Elizabeth Coren Mitchell (' Coren; born ) is a British writer, TV presenter and professional poker player. Coren Mitchell writes weekly columns for ''The Telegraph'' and has hosted the BBC television quiz show '' Only Connect'' since 2 ...

providing analysis. Hartigan also presents the live

webcast A webcast is a media presentation distributed over the Internet using streaming media technology to distribute a single content source to many simultaneous listeners/viewers. A webcast may either be distributed live or on demand. Essentially, web ...

from each event. The TV show was first hosted by

Caroline Flack Caroline Louise Flack (9 November 1979 – 15 February 2020) was an English television and radio presenter and actress. She won the twelfth series of BBC’s ''Strictly Come Dancing'' in 2014 and presented '' The X Factor'' and later ''Love Is ...

, then joined by

Natalie Pinkham Natalie Jane Pinkham (born 20 September 1977) is a British television presenter and Formula One pit lane reporter for Sky Sports F1, having held the same post for BBC Radio 5 Live in 2011. She is also known for hosting '' Police Interceptors Spe ...

. Seasons 4 and 5 were hosted by

Kara Scott Kara Scott is a Canadian British TV personality, journalist and poker player. Born in northern Alberta, Canada, Scott moved to the United Kingdom in 1999 and worked in the UK media until 2009 when she moved to California. Having trained in Mu ...

, while Seasons 6 and 7 were fronted by Michelle Orpe. Since Season 8, there have been four different presenters with Kristy Arnett, Sarah Grant, Laura Cornelius and

Lynn Gilmartin Lynn Gilmartin (born 3 November 1984 in Dublin, Ireland. Emigrated to Australia in 1986) is an Australian actress and TV host, best known as the anchor of the ''World Poker Tour'' on Fox Sports Networks (US). In 2020, she was inducted into Th ...

, with commentators James Hartigan and Joe Stapleton presenting the TV shows.

2010 EPT Berlin robbery

On 6 March 2010 four masked men, armed with knives and at least one hand gun robbed the EPT event in Berlin. According to the police, the robbers got away with €242,000. No one was seriously injured, only one guard got a minor cut while trying to detain one of the robbers. The panic which gripped the crowd was briefly captured on the live webcast before the camera cut away. The attackers were caught several days after the robbery and later convicted and sentenced to three years in prison.

2017 rebranding

In 2017, the series was discontinued and rebranded as the

PokerStars Championship The PokerStars Championship was a series of global poker tournaments which began in 2017. The formation of the series was announced in August 2016, when PokerStars revealed that the European Poker Tour and other poker tours were being rebranded. Se ...

. However, this only lasted one year and the EPT returned in 2018.

2020 EPT Online

In 2020, three scheduled stops on the EPT (in Monte Carlo, Barcelona and Prague) were cancelled due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

– a fourth event (in Sochi) continued as planned. An inaugural EPT Online series took place on sponsor site PokerStars instead, running from 8–18 November 2020. The series comprised 20 tournaments, including a $5,200 Main Event, four $10,300 High Roller events, and a $25,000 Super High Roller. The Main Event, which had a $5 million guaranteed prize pool, attracted 1,304 entries. The final prize pool came to $6.52 million, of which $1,019,082 went to the eventual winner "WhatIfGod", with Timothy Adams finishing as runner-up.

EPT Main Event winners

References

External links

Official site

EPT Main Events All Time Money List
{{Major Poker Tournaments 2005 television series debuts Poker tournaments