ESPN World Poker

ESPN World Poker

When it comes to ESPN World Poker, it’s a sure bet that you are talking about the World Series of Poker. It’s important that you don’t get this series confused with the World Poker Tour, as there are several differences. The main source of confusion seems to be that the World Series of Poker is now offering a tour, so the similarity in the names tends to lead people astray as to which sports betting poker championship they are actually about to watch. Let’s look over some of the differences.

History

First of all, the World Series of Poker has a much longer history than the World Poker Tour, both in terms of broadcasting and in terms of establishment. The WSOP was created was started in 1968 and airs exclusively from Vegas, although the worldwide tour the WSOP now sponsors does take place in locations worldwide. The World Series of Poker has been broadcast by ESPN since the 1970s.

The World Poker Tour, on the other hand, was created exclusively for television broadcast after the invention of the hole cam. The fact that this has always been a truly worldwide tour might have helped in this regard, as the idea for the hole cam came from Europe. Although there are important stops on the worldwide tour, there is no main event persay, unlike the WSOP. In addition, since its creation the WPT has been exclusively broadcast to poker TV fans by the Travel Channel, although the 2008 season will be on the TV schedule of GSN. Either way, it’s important to note that there is no such thing as ESPN WPT coverage; the World Poker Tour was started to compete with the poker coverage of the sports giant.

Format

Both the WSOP and the World Poker Tour have their own official ranking systems which determine which players are at the top. You’ll still find that there’s great potential for a world poker showdown with either event, since many of the pros play both circuits; in fact with the popularity of poker today the pro players have more chances to win money than ever before.

If you want to catch these events on TV, it’s important to consult the tv listings, particularly those that are provided over the Internet. Both the WSOP and the WPT list the events and their locations well ahead of schedule and the Travel Channel (and one can assume GSN will as well) and ESPN both put this schedule on their sites as soon as possible. The WPT is interesting as with the travel in mind it has a more worldwide appeal, and the change of scenery can be exciting from tournament to tournament.

Although you can expect to see ESPN World Poker events on that station, don’t be confused and think that you are watching the World Poker Tour. The World Poker events on ESPN are usually a part of the WSOP tournament while it’s GSN that will have the WPT on its tv listings.