When it began just over six years ago, the World Poker Tour was the only game in town. Sure, the World Series of Poker was showing its usual mild growth, but it was a tournament schedule that didn’t have any draw other than its traditional April-to-May run. There wasn’t a great deal of poker action at the time and casinos were closing poker rooms across the United States in favor of the more lucrative banks of slot machines that didn’t have to have human operation to bring in the money. The World Poker Tour changed many of the facets of poker, making it the “hip” thing to do as the first decade of the 21st century rumbled along. The WPT’s tournaments, broadcast on the cable network The Travel Channel, suddenly became highly popular as the game’s television ratings soared and players, professional and amateur, suddenly flocked to take part in the events. With this outpouring of players and, more importantly, the money that went along with it, other organizations began to put together their own tours to compete against the WPT. In 2004, PokerStars decided to attack the untapped market that was Europe with their own tour, the European Poker Tour. Starting ...