The World Poker Tour launch social casino PlayWPT; welcome the players to provide feedback at the forthcoming Borgata Poker Open, and Pat Lyons wins WPT Legends of Poker.
The World Poker Tour (WPT) has decided to follow the crowd and move into the casino business. In their first joint venture with owners OurGame International Holdings Ltd., the WPT has created a new social gambling platform. PlayWPT is now available on desktop and Facebook worldwide.
One of the difficulties with play money sites, especially in poker, is the legitimacy of the action. To combat this, the WPT has created a more competitive environment by ‘strategically limiting’ the number of play money chips in action.
At the tail end of the week I wrote about the partnership between PokerStars and Seven Deuce Gaming and the launch of Casino Rush. That collaboration resulted in poker themed slots, but the WPT have taken a different tact by creating slots with a prehistoric dinosaur theme.
WPT CEO and President, Adam Pliska, who is no dinosaur, was keen to emphasise their ability to react quicker with product creation thanks to their partnership with the Chinese gaming company, with PlayWPT being the shining example.
WPT Players Forum
The WPT live tournament team has announced plans to host a players forum at the forthcoming Borgata Poker Cup. The specially arranged feedback session will take place Sep 19, 20.30 (ET) at Borgata’s Studio 3, located in the Event Center where players will be invited to air opinion and ask questions related to the WPT.
The $3,500 buy-in WPT Borgata Poker Open runs Sep 18-23, carries a $3m guarantee, and will be filmed for Fox Sports Network (FSN) as well as live streamed on the Internet. Players wanting to reserve a spot in the forum should email [email protected].
Pat Lyons Wins WPT Legends of Poker
Pat Lyons has won the WPT Legends of Poker Main Event at the Bicycle Hotel & Casino, California.
Lyons, who likes to refer to himself as the World Famous Pat Lyons topped a final table that included the WPT Player of the Year (POY) front-runner Benjamin Zamani and 77-year old William Vo.
Joy for Lyons turned into heartache for Zamani as the pair clashed in heads-up action. It’s the third time Zamani has played heads-up for a berth in the WPT Champions Club and came up short. He finished runner-up to Tyler Patterson in the Season 14 WPT bestbet Bounty Scramble; second to James Mackey in Season 15 WPT Choctaw last month, and has now his latest pang against Lyons.
687 players entered the $4,000 buy-in Main Event. It’s Lyons second big score of the month after beating 1,510 entrants to take the $241,700 first prize and title in the $1,100 buy-in Arizona State Poker Championship in Scottsdale.
Final Table Results
1. Pat Lyons – $615,346
2. Benjamin Zamani – $341,412
3. Upeshka Desilva – $198,720
4. Todd Peterson – $149,715
5. William Vo – $113,105
6. Rafael Oliveira – $85,760
Other notables to make a deep run including Jeremy Kottler (7th), Garrett Greer (8th), and David Pham (9th).
