Professional Poker Tour

The Professional Poker Tour (PPT) was a series of televised poker tournaments, spinning off from the World Poker Tour (WPT) television series. It billed itself as the first professional poker league, and was limited to players who have established themselves on the World Poker Tour, World Series of Poker, or major participation on the poker circuit.

Matt Corboy was the lead commentator, with poker pro Mark Seif as color commentator and Kaye Han as floor reporter. The first season, taped in 2005, began airing regularly on Travel Channel on July 5, 2006 and left the air in 2007.

Television Format

Events were telecast across five shows each. The first four shows were labeled as quarters, from 1st Quarter to 4th Quarter, reflecting early-round play in the event. The final six-player table was the fifth show of the cycle.

Qualifying

These tournaments were invitation-only freerolls (no entry fee, but only certain players were invited).

First Season Qualifiers

3 year entry

• All WPT winners
• Any player that made more than one WPT final table in a single season
• Top three places in WPT Championship
• Top ten places on WPT Season 2 Player of the Year list
• All previous winners of the World Series of Poker (wsop) Main event
• Top three places in 2003 and 2004 wsop Main Event
• Top ten places on CardPlayer Player of the Year list
• Top ten places on Phil Hellmuth Jr Champion of the Year list
• Members of the World Poker Tour Walk of Fame
• Members of the Poker Hall of Fame

2 year entry

• Fourth, fifth and sixth place finish in WPT Championship
• Fourth, fifth and sixth place finish in WSOP Main Event during 2003 or 2004

1, 2 or 3 year entry

• Players selected by the PPT Advisory Committee
• Top ten places on Poker Europa List for 2004
• WPT commentators

Planned Second Season Qualifiers

This was the last known list of potential qualifiers for a second season of the PPT, which was planned to be played in late 2006 and early 2007. This list was intended to include poker professionals active in 2005 and 2006.

3 year entry

• All WPT event champions from all 4 seasons
• Anyone who made more than one WPT Season 4 final table
• Top three finishers in the 2005 (Season 3) and 2006 (Season 4) WPT Championship
• Top ten players on the 2005 and 2006 WPT Player of the Year Points Lists
• Top three finishers in the 2005 and 2006 WSOP Main Events
• Top 10 players in each of these 2005 Player of the Year lists:
  • Card Player Magazine
  • PokerPages.com
  • BLUFF Magazine
  • ALL-IN Magazine
• Inductees into the WPT Poker Walk of Fame
• Inductees into the Poker Hall of Fame
• PPT tournament winners
• Participants in 2 or more PPT final tables in one season

2 year entry

• Fourth through sixth place finishers in the 2005 and 2006 WPT Championships
• Fourth through sixth place finishers in the 2005 and 2006 WSOP Main Events
• Any PPT Season 1 3-year cardholder who didn’t otherwise qualify

1 year entry

• Top 20 players on 2005 European Poker List
• Anyone who played 13 WPT main events in 2005 or 2006
• One-time PPT final table participants
• Any PPT Season 1 2-year cardholder who didn’t otherwise qualify
• WPT announcers Mike Sexton, Vince Van Patten, and Linda Johnson

WPT Enterprises also qualified other participants at their discretion. In addition, each event had 12 exemptions shared between the host casino and WPTE.

PPT withdrew entry from otherwise-qualified players who didn’t play at least 2 of the 5 PPT Season 1 events and didn’t play at least half of the WPT Season 3 and 4 events. Among the well-known players who were excluded from PPT Season 2 under this rule were Johnny Chan, Sam Farha, Phil Gordon, Chris Moneymaker, and Amarillo Slim.

Planned Second Season

On August 8, 2006, WPT Enterprises announced that the first tournament of the second season of the PPT, at the Borgata Casino in Atlantic City, had been postponed from September 2006. At the time of the postponement, PPT did not have a contract for television coverage of the second season. WPT Enterprises announced on September 28, 2006 that the Foxwoods and Bellagio tournaments were also postponed. While there was no announcement, a tournament scheduled for the Commerce Casino in Los Angeles in February 2007 never took place. The tournaments have since been canceled. When WPT relaunched their website to coincide with their broadcasts moving from Travel Channel to GSN, the Professional Poker Tour section was deleted. The events that comprised the PPT in 2005 were reintegrated into the WPT schedule in 2007-08.

Results