The television show that prompted a poker boom in the United States is coming to the United Kingdom. The World Poker Tour, a weekly poker program that televises some of the biggest no-limit poker tournaments around the world, will debut on the new ITV4, a channel that will target male viewers in the UK.
The WPT featured innovative use of lipstick cameras to show audiences the hole cards, and combined that with blow-by-blow commentary on key hands. The style of commentary was borrowed from pro-wrestling, generating an incredible amount of excitement as well as allowing viewers with little or no prior knowledge of poker to follow the action. The commentary by renowned poker player Mike Sexton and former tennis pro Vince Van Patten, transformed poker into a "sport" that has gained huge audience number in the United States. The United Kingdom is by far the second largest poker market in the world, and the World Poker Tour should take off as a very popular TV show there as well.
