Presumably when the WPT Championship was dreamt up the idea was that it would become not just the crown jewel of the World Poker Tour but of all of poker. Coming into this season numbers were down on the World Poker Tour. This season was a virtual disaster. They will not come close to matching even the numbers from last year and the WPT is no longer even second on the block, the EPT (European Poker Tour, which is sponsored by Poker Stars) now holds that title. Which, by the way, was a big success and every year they seem to draw more and more people to Monte Carlo. Legal issues aside the WPT is getting their ass kicked.

The World Poker Tour’s stock sells at little more than the cash reserves it holds. It has been talked about a lot that poker needs fewer poker tournaments. Well like in most markets the last few go kicking and screaming. As someone who started on the World Poker Tour it does not sadden me that they have suffered this fate. They fought the players at every point and created competition with every decision they made. When they could have brought in online poker sites they chose to compete with them and now it appears they are failing.

If indeed they do fail it will be because their ideas never really got better. A lot will be made of their relationship with their players and how badly they botched that, personally I have always felt that is a bit too convenient. The reason I believe that is because with good ideas the people will follow. All of the logical ideas of added money to tournaments and professional poker tours failed not because they were not good ideas, they were just executed so poorly.

The simple fact is that a business is supposed to get better and if you look at the World Poker Tour today it is virtually the same product that it was in the beginning. If you were to ask Steve Lipscomb he will tell you that it was his genius that made poker what it is today but in reality he borrowed other ideas to make his own. Which is not bad, businesses do that all the time but to be successful you need to work to get better, even in a competitive environment. When the WPT could have made friends they made enemies, in the end, that will be their legacy.