The World Poker Tour's Tournament of Champions, with its unique format, special qualifying system and value-added prize pool may be a hot, buzz-worthy topic in the industry, but the idea of a tournament of champions isn't new.
Many modern poker fans can recall the old World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions, a short-lived event that ran from 2004 through 2006 and the made a brief return in 2010. Players could qualify by winning WSOP Circuit events or making the WSOP Main Event final table, and some celebrity players were simply invited to make the event more appealing for TV.