The Televised Poker Games at the United States Poker Championship
The United States Poker Championship is another major event that features top-of-the-line tournaments in poker. It is held yearly at the very enchanting Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City. This is one of the many reasons why numerous serious poker players make a yearly stop in the beautiful state of New Jersey.
Throughout the history of this huge poker event, ESPN has been privileged to be the only network to own the rights to broadcast United States Poker Championship's series of tournaments on TV. The sports television network started to air the show in 1997. For some reasons, this television coverage experienced a temporary halt after the end of the 2000 season. For three long years, the show had no television coverage.
In 2003, ESPN decided to sign another contract with the owners of the United States Poker Championship for the right to put the poker tournaments once again on television. Since then, the show progressed and has attracted multitudes of viewers to watch. This includes the boom of the poker industry in 2005. ESPN makes it a point to bring the different exciting poker tournaments directly into the television sets of viewers all over the world.
The set of poker tournaments in this event ends with a $10,000 buy-in championship tournament. This yearly event is set to be no-limit Texas Holdem poker. Let's have a quick look at how the most recent championship tournaments progressed. In 2003, Toto Leonidas bagged the $388,080-pot against top contender Erik Seidel. The fellow finalists who reached the final table are Trong Le, Frank Russomanno, Mickey Appleman, Kenneth Jacoby, John Hennigan, Phil Hellmuth Jr., and Ray Ho Lin.
In the 2004 season, Joe Cassidy was defeated by John Aglialoro for the $691,096-pot. Those who completed the roster of finalists include Alan Colon, John D'Agostino, Walter Hollander, Brian Haveson, Matthew Glantz, Dean Schultz, and Hoyt Corkins. The 2005 season was an entirely different story. James Caporuscio found himself face to face with top finalist Ralph Pecorale for the $831,532-pot. In the end, Caporuscio was able to beat Pecorale along with the rest of the final table cast.
The 2006 season of the United States Poker Championship was dominated by Alex Jacob as he took home the pot worth $878,500. Among those he defeated in the final table were Augustin Mendez, Dale Pinchot, Daniel Shak, Jordan Morgan, Shane Schleger, Jeffrey King, Stephen Feraca, and Michael DeMichele. In the 2007 season, Adam Gerber defeated Louis Lee for the $606,095-pot. In each of these seasons, people have been treated with world class tournaments as they watch poker on TV.