World Poker Tour Through the Years

“May all your cards be live, and your pots be monsters” is the familiar motto of the World Poker Tour. Founded back in 2002 by Steven Lipschomb, the World Poker Tour has helped to revive poker as a sport and renew interest in the popular card game. The show features poker tournaments from all over the world and just recently they unveiled a brand new women’s division. They’ve also started to award special bracelets to the winners of each tournament as of 2008. Currently, World Poker Tour is in its sixth season. It has aired on NBC and Travel Channel through its many seasons, with it recently being moved onto Game Show Network (GSN).

The show has made some celebrities of its poker players as well as female hosts. For the first three seasons, World Poker Tour was hosted by the beautiful Shana Hiatt. Hiatt is a former Miss Hawaiian Tropic USA as well as a Keystone Light girl. She’s guest hosted shows like E!’s Wild On! and has appeared in movies such as Must Love Dogs and Grandma’s Boy. After Shana stopped hosting, she was replaced by another well known beauty, Courtney Friel. Courtney is currently a bubbly news anchor on the Fox News channel, who has also appeared in Maxim and FHM photo shoots. Both Shana and Courtney have been featured in Maxim magazine. The World Poker Tour’s most recent female hosts have been Layla Kayleigh, Kimberly Lansing, and for its latest season, poker player and reporter Amanda Leatherman.

World Poker Tour is currently seen Mondays on the Game Show Network and ranks high in terms of viewers on cable. They created a Walk of Fame to induct famous or noteworthy poker players in 2004, one of which is poker legend Gus Hansen. Another is actor James Garner. WPT will be moving to Fox Sports Network (FSN) for its next season. This sports game show will continue to go strong as it showcases the most talented poker players from around the world.

By: Ben Major