What seemed incredible and almost impossible to us years ago is becoming a reality this year. WSOP 2023 broke all possible records and the Main Event itself also finally set a new record after many years. Now it's the turn of the WPT, which has bold ambitions.
The rival of the WSOP - WPT series this year brought a series of smaller tournaments called WPT Prime, which are held around the world. The series is very popular and has a growing trend. For example, in February of this year, Australia managed to set a record number of entries in the Main Event, namely 1,224. However, it is no longer valid! Two weeks ago, we witnessed a new record that was born in the WPT Prime Taiwan Main Event, where the entry counter shot up to 1,359 entries.
However, the Prime sub-series is not the only one to have success. The WPT World Championship in Las Vegas with a buy-in of $10,400 guaranteed $15,000,000 last year. However, players came to the Wynn casino in large numbers and thanks to 2,960 entries, the prize pool reached the value of $29,008,000. The winner, Eliot Hudon, took home $4,136,000. For comparison, the 2019 WPT produced 716 entries and a prize pool of $6,945,200.
After last year's success, the organizers decided to shock the poker world and this year set the guarantee for the Main Event alone, with an unchanged buy-in, to a massive $40 million, which is the largest guarantee for a live tournament in the history of poker. It is thus highly likely that this tournament, which takes place from December 12th to 21th, will attract a huge number of players. $9,800 will go into the prize pool from the buy-in, so only 4,082 entries are needed to fulfill the guarantee. Four initial flights have to take care of that!
WPT CEO Adam Pliska said in a press release: “The WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas is poised to reach new heights and we wanted to match that expectation with a guarantee that no live poker tournament has ever seen before. The journey to December begins now, and we plan on giving players another unforgettable experience at Wynn Las Vegas.”
Ryan Beauregard, Executive Director of Poker Operations at Wynn Las Vegas also commented: “The astonishing support and excitement we’ve seen from the poker community after just one year is nothing like I’ve seen before. We look forward to the 2023 WPT World Championship and hosting another industry-leading event with an unparalleled player experience.”
The entire festival will run from November 29 to December 23 and will guarantee a total of more than $56,000,000. There will also be a charity WPT Big One for One Drop with a buy-in of $1,000,000 or a Mystery Bounty tournament with a buy-in of $1,600 and a guarantee of $2,000,000. The cheapest tournaments will have a buy-in of $600 and will be the first two tournaments of the entire festival. The first will be Limit Omaha/8 with a guarantee of $60,000 and the second will be NLH with a guarantee of $1,000,000. The WPT Prime Championship with a buy-in of $1,100 and a guarantee of $5,000,000, which will be held from December 7 to 12, will also be tempting.
If you keep in mind the dates of the various major poker festivals, you must have noticed that the WPT will be held on the same date as the premiere WSOP Paradise in the Bahamas (12/3 to 12/14/2023) and also during EPT Prague (12/6 to 12/17/2023 ). Last time, in the article, we thought about whether EPT Prague will suffer a lot thanks to WSOP Paradise. With the announcement of a $40,000,000 guarantee in the WPT World Championship Main Event, as well as a total festival guarantee exceeding $56,000,000, our concerns about EPT Prague are even more real.
You can find the complete WPT schedule here
Source: WPT, Flickr, Pokernews, Somuchpoker, Cardplayer, Pokerstrategy, Poker.org, Youtube
