With record-breaking live events in the books, the World Poker Tour is setting itself up for what Matt Savage, the tour’s Executive Tournament Director, believes will be a massive comeback year. Matt Savage and the WPT are about to enter their 20th year (Image: Twitter/@SavagePoker) “It’s been a very busy year despite having less live events. We’re looking towards the future but at the same time, we broke some records for events,” said Savage in an interview with CardsChat News. WPT on the comeback trail
Next month, the WPT DeepStacks returns to Choctaw casino in Oklahoma five months after attracting 964 entries in a $3,500 event. Running from Nov. 5-8, the $1,100 WPT DeepStacks gives regional players a cheaper option to the WSOP Main Event, which starts on Nov. 3.
Savage says the numbers from the last Oklahoma event, along with large fields in other events around the country, are encouraging for the WPT, especially after the tour was forced to cancel some previous events due to COVID.
In July, the WPT Venetian attracted 1,199 players , a record-breaking field for a $5,000 buy-in, says Savage. He also saw 1,165 players enter Seminole Hard Rock Tampa for $3,500. While neither of those events was filmed for broadcast, Savage says the WPT plans to tape “five to seven” tournaments for broadcast next year.
In the meantime, the WPT returns to TV this month with four episodes of cash games that were filmed at Gardena Casino in Los Angeles just last month. They will be aired on Fox Sports Net on Sundays in October. A Savage view of the future
In addition to catching us up on the latest doings at the WPT, Savage also took some time to share his views on the poker industry today, and where it’s headed in the future.
CC : With Choctaw, was it a conscious decision to compete with the World Series of Poker Main Event?
MS : I would say no. I just think it’s a different area of the country. Texas has been off the hook with a lot of new players and all the […]
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