On Tuesday, it was announced that the World Poker Tour and the DeepStacks Poker Tour will be joining forces to create a new mid-major poker tour called WPTDeepStacks, which will tap into the resources of both tours.
This consolidated tour will use the power of the WPT brand in addition to the operational capabilities of the DeepStacks Poker Tour, and the new WPTDeepStacks events will also offer bigger guaranteed prize pools with the goal of providing an overall better player experience.
Back in 2010, the World Poker Tour realized that not every player had thousands of dollars to spare to buy-in to their Main Events, and so created a new poker tour with a schedule comprising of various low buy-in tournaments. These tournaments were known as the WPT Regional Series for US players and the WPT National Series for rest of world players.
For years these smaller buy-in regional WPT events have been very popular but according to a press release, the WPT felt that a change of names and operational procedures was necessary. As a result a partnership with the DeepStacks Poker Tour was formed.
WPT President Adam Pliska released a statement on Tuesday addressing the recent announcement. “Combining WPT’s brand with DSPT’s staff and cutting-edge approach is a victory for both brands. We couldn’t be more excited about what this means for poker players everywhere.”
The DeepStacks Poker Tour (DSPT) is at the mid point of its 2014 tour, and following this announcement, will be renamed to WPTDeepStacks for the final stops this year. The DSPT still has yet to visit California, Canada, London, and Malta.
There will be a WPTDeepStacks Player of the Year (PoY) award offered to the best overall player that plays in all eligible events. In February, the DSPT announced that the Global Poker Index (GPI) ranking system will be used to determine the PoY winner, and so we can probably assume that WPTDeepStacks will adopt the same ranking system.
The PoY player will get a seat into the WPT World Championship and will also gain a sponsorship from WPTDeepstacks, which includes tournament buy-ins and accommodation for a number of future events, along with a WPTDeepStacks poker table.
DSPT President Chris Torina had this to say to ESPN. “WPTDeepStacks completely redefines the mid-major tournament market, delivering a world class experience to low to medium buy-in players, at the fraction of the cost,” further adding, “WPT is an exceptional brand to align with and this partnership will be an industry game changer.”
The DeepStacks Poker Tour was established in 2012, which was formed from the creation of the DeepStacks University back in 2009. The company is represented by several of the top poker pros including Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi, and Mike “The Mouth” Matusow.
Moving forward the WPTDeepStacks tour will offer a wide variety of regional events in its schedule all with extremely affordable buy-ins designed to get the interest of low and mid stakes tournament players that wouldn’t typically be able to afford the buy-in of the WPT Main Events. In addition to the existing DSPT stops on the tour, the WPTDeepStacks tour will also be looking to add additional stops in 2015.
This announcement comes on the back of the WPT announcing that they will be hosting a $500 + $65 buy-in event at the Aria Resort & Casino. The WPT500, which will be presented by Party Poker, will take place in July during the same time as the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, and will feature a guaranteed prize pool of $1,000,000 with $200,000 going to the eventual winner.