User:Kidtire/WRGPT

WRGPT - World Rec.Gambling Poker Tournament

The WRGPT is most likely the world's largest email based poker tournament. It is played annually by 1100+ players who send in their moves, receive their cards and see other player's action by email.

The tournament starts in the fall, usually late September or October, and finishes in June or July most years. As it is done via email it usually takes several days to complete one hand.

There is no entry fee for WRGPT nor are there any prizes or sponsors. The game is entirely run by volunteers using computing resources volunteered as well.

The tournament has been going since WRGPT1 which was started in 1991. This first tournament was hand dealt by Will Hyde who sent email to each player with their cards. He kept a separate deck of cards for each of the three tables.

The tournament has been played by World Series of Poker bracelet winners Chris Ferguson, Greg Raymer, Bill Chen, Jay Sipelstein, Perry Friedman and Rafe Furst as well as Phil Gordon, poker authors Lee Jones and Nollan Dalla.

The next year Ron Duursma volunteered to write software to run the tournament. Ron was the floorman for several years until he decided he wanted some help. Jeff Woods hosted WRGPT8. Ken Anderson hosted WRGPT9 and all WRGPT tourneys since then. David Widder has acted as floorman as well since WRGPT13.

WRGPT16 will likely start in October of 2006.

Previous year's winners are kept at www.quizkids.com/wrgpt

Status on the current tournament are kept at www.quizkids.com/wrgpt15

Almost live updates (5 minute delay) are kept at hands.wrgpt.org

Google Groups archives have the rec.gambling.poker announcements for WRGPT5 and WRGPT6