The PokerStars North American Poker Tour (NAPT) is a premier live poker tour in the United States, offering unrivaled tournament structures and massive prize pools. Satellites for the NAPT events are available online at PokerStars, PokerStars Michigan, PokerStars New Jersey, and PokerStars Pennsylvania.
North American Poker Tour
Finished Tournaments |
Winner | Winning Hand | Prize | Runner-up | Losing Hand |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
2024 Pennsylvania State Poker Championship | Max Pinnola | $103,000 | Matthew Sabia | ||
2024 Maryland State Poker Championship | Ben Gazzola | k♦2♦ | $110,578 | Parker Talbot | a♥8♥ |
The NAPT launched in January 2010 and ran for one season before being suspended midway through its second season. The suspension was a direct result of online poker's "Black Friday" in April 2011.
Harrison Gimbel took down the inaugural NAPT event, the $10,300 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Main Event in January 2010.
Gimbel's victory sparked a flurry of stellar names becoming NAPT champions. Such luminaries as Tom Marchese, Joe Tehan, and Galen Hall helped themselves to NAPT titles during the tour's infancy.
Vanessa Selbst, then a member of Team PokerStars, triumphed in the 2010 PokerStars NAPT Mohegan Sun Main Event and walked away with an impressive $750,000. Amazingly, a year later, Selbst won the same tournament for a $450,000 addition to her vast bankroll.
Two days after Selbst's second NAPT victory, "Black Friday" occurred and resulted in several prominent online poker sites, including PokerStars, withdrawing from the United States. Black Friday not only spelled the end of the NAPT but online poker in the United States; but only temporarily.
NAPT Returns To Much Fanfare
In 2023, with the online poker landscape looking much rosier in the United States, the tour returned in November 2023 with the amazing PokerStars NAPT Las Vegas festival at Resorts World.
PokerStars operates in the states of Michigan, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, thanks to ever-changing laws regarding online gambling and poker in North America.