Prime already knows its winner
The second largest WPT Prime event in history saw a total of 9,670 entries, which made the final nine after three days of play. The latter sat at the final table with a sure $114,000 mincash, but everyone had their eyes on the $1,162,350 prize. Kevin Calenzo was the closest to that before the final table, starting the final table with an 81bb stack.
The aforementioned chipleader, after a long and tough day, eventually parlayed his advantage down to a final third place finish and a $560,000 reward. Two local players, Zak VanKeuren and Jim Casement, faced off in the final heads-up. There was no debate on the hand, but in the end, the champion was Zak VanKeuren, who took home $1,162,350 and a ticket to the Main Event to boot!
- 1st: Zak VanKeuren - $1,162,350*
- 2nd: Jim Casement - $759,890
- 3rd: Kevin Calenzo - $560,000
- 4th: Malik Zaman - $420,000
- 5th: Joe Ozimok - $320,000
- 6th: Ryan Stiner - $240,000
- 7th: Colin Hong - $186,000
- 8th: Ralph Marquez - $145,000
- 9th: Justin Young - $114,000
Biggest freeroll in history
In addition to the aforementioned Prime Event, the Wynn Las Vegas hosted the largest freeroll the poker world has ever seen - the $5 million ClubWPT Gold Freeroll. A total of 1,457 players were invited to participate, and after two days of play, a final nine consisting entirely of local players was formed.
The latter will be playing for handsome prizes today, as each of the finalists already has $20,000 in their pockets, with a straight million awaiting the winner. But in addition to these sums, there are also bounties in play for eliminating opponents, which start at $10,000 and go up to $200,000. The closest player to a win at the moment is home player Daniyal Gheba, the chipcount of the final table looks like this:
- Daniyal Gheba - 11,725,000 (94 bb)
- Jacob Stufflebean - 5,175,000 (41 bb)
- Patrick Eskandar - 4,005,000 (32 bb)
- Chase Bricker - 3,175,000 (25 bb)
- Victor Avallone - 3,150,000 (25 bb)
- Tyler Hancock - 3,075,000 (25 bb)
- Jason Christopher - 2,850,000 (23 bb)
- Josh Guindon, 2,075,000 (17 bb)
- Eric Zheng - 1,225,000 (10 bb)
Start of the main event
Players turned their attention to the Main Event yesterday, which again this year carries a $10,400 buy-in. Last year, this event carried a $40 million guarantee, but thanks to 3,835 entries, it went undefeated. This year, the tournament has the same attributes, offering players ti starting days in which a 100,000 stack and hour-long levels await them. The only change this year is that the tournament has no guarantee.
We'll see how this will be reflected in the number of entries in the coming days, as we've only seen the first day of Day 1A so far, which produced solid numbers with 751 entries. At the end of the day, 252 players had packed their stacks, and those who didn't have two more chances - one charge can be used in each flighter.
Source - WorldPokerTour, flickr
