Previously, the only way to gain a wealth of poker knowledge was to invest thousands of dollars and hours in high-stakes games, but now the two-day World Poker Tour (WPT) Boot Camp helps players pick up enough card-playing skills in one weekend to put them on the fast track to the final table. 

In response to the explosive popularity of Texas Hold’em, fueled by televised tournaments and Internet gaming sites, MGM Grand offers poker players a chance to learn the secrets of the pros at the World Poker Tour Boot Camp.

The boot camp, while reminiscent of big money fantasy camps run by Major League Baseball, is much more about actual instruction than just rubbing elbows with pros and living out a dream. The camp is designed to give amateurs, Internet poker players and veterans yearning to improve their skills intensive immersion in poker strategy.

Created in 2004 by Steve Berman and Ron Rubens, amateur poker players and former leaders of information technology bootcamp classes, the WPT Boot Camp features professional and celebrity poker player instructors teaching all the aspects of competitive tournament Texas Hold’em poker. “One thing that makes us unique is that we limit the size of the camps to 50 students. Some of the others have two or three
hundred participants,” said Rubens. 

Instruction comes from the greats of the game, including World Series winner and WPT commentator Mike Sexton, his WPT co-host Vince Van Patten, as well as poker expert Alex “The Insider” Outhred, the man behind the camera who analyzes all hands played at WPT final tables. This core group of teachers is joined by a roster of poker champs, including T.J. Cloutier, Scotty Nguyen and Linda Johnson, among others. “It’s an intensive seminar designed to help people think the same way as a professional poker player,” said Sexton. “MGM Grand offers a wonderful environment to play in.”