The World Poker Tour is a collection of Texas hold ‘em poker tournaments held internationally, but mainly in the United States. The television show and the broadcasts of the World Series of Poker have led to a boom in the table game across American homes, in local casino poker rooms and online. The key sponsors of the tour are casinos and online poker sites. The show, which is syndicated internationally, is co-hosted by World Series of Poker bracelet winner Mike Sexton, and actor Vince Van Patten. Shana Hiatt served as the show host and sideline reporter in its first three seasons. Courtney Friel took over the host role for the fourth season, and Sabina Gadecki for the fifth. Layla Kayleigh and Kimberly Lansing began serving as hostesses in season six. WPT has announced that poker player and reporter Amanda Leatherman, who was hired in July 2008 to host “live updates” on the WPT website, will be the hostess for season seven.

Since 2003, major poker tournament fields have grown dramatically, in part because of the growing popularity of online satellite-qualifier tournaments where the prize is an entry into a major tournament. The 2003 and 2004 World Series Of Poker champions, Chris Moneymaker and Greg Raymer, respectively, won their seats to the main event by winning online satellites.[18]. After the passage of the UIGEA in October of 2006, attendance at live tournaments as well as participation in live and online cash games has slowed, however they are still far more popular today than they were prior to 2003.

Stud poker is any of a number of poker variants in which each player receives a mix of face-down and face-up cards dealt in multiple betting rounds. Stud games are also typically non-positional games, meaning that the player who bets first on each round may change from round to round (it is usually the player whose face-up cards make the best hand for the game being played). The cards dealt face down to each individual player are called hole cards (which gave rise to the common English expression ace in the hole, which suggests that one has something valuable that is not apparent to others).