The World Poker Tour brand had another successful year, concluding with the World Championship Festival at the Wynn Las Vegas. The event kicked off with the $1,100 Prime Event, which became the second largest in its history thanks to 9,670 entries.
WPT: Zak VanKeuren wins the Prime Event
After that, it was on to the ClubWPT Gold Freeroll, which went down in history as the biggest freeroll the poker world has ever seen. 1,457 selected players played for the prize of a lifetime, with the biggest prize going to local player Chase Bricker. He took home a straight million dollars for his winnings, plus an extra $110,000 in bounty rewards.
Final table results:
- 1st: Chase Bricker - $1,000,000
- 2nd: Jason Christopher - $250,000
- 3rd: Daniyal Gheba - $125,000
- 4th: Victor Avallone - $75,000
- 5th: Patrick Eskandar - $50,000
- 6th: Tyler Hancock - $40,000
- 7th: Josh Guindon - $30,000
- 8th: Eric Zheng - $25,000
- 9th: Jacob Stufflebean - $20,000
Successful Main Event with an 8-figure prizepool
The highlight of the entire WPT World Championship festival again this year is the $10,400 Main Event, which, while it didn't replicate last year's numbers, still provided a nice prizepool. In fact, last year this tournament had a $40 million guarantee, which narrowly failed to materialize thanks to 3,835 entries. This year, also due to the ongoing EPT in Prague and the WSOP Paradise festival in the Bahamas, the organizers decided to make the tournament without a guarantee, which resulted in a lower turnout.
Still, the opening three days took care of a total of 2,932 entries, which means a prizepool worth $23,441,600. A total of 821 players have advanced to today's Day 2, with the top 299 players enjoying prize money. The mincash in this tournament will be worth $19,600, and there is a $3,138,900 bonus awaiting the winner. All names and stacks have not been released at the time of writing, we will reveal more detailed info in tomorrow's article.
Source - WorldPokerTour, flickr
