WPT Prime Championship Final Table Is Set – Seven Figures for the Winner!
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Last Updated: January 25, 2024
It’s not every day that you get a chance to turn a $1k buy-in into a seven-figure payday, but that’s exactly what the winner of the WPT Prime Championship at the Wynn can look forward to!
The tournament started with an ambitious guarantee of $5,000,000, which is a big ask for a $1,100 live buy-in event. However, by the time the registration had officially closed, the tournament clock was showing 10,512 entries – enough to more than double the original promise, bringing the final prize pool to an impressive $10.2 million!
As one would expect, it took a while for the massive field to dwindle down to the final table, but this tournament, like every other tournament in poker history, came down to its inevitable finish. There are now only six players remaining, holding all the chips, and eying the massive first prize of $1,386,280.
Everyone remaining is guaranteed to take home at least $290,000, so it’s hard to imagine any of the players left in the contention will go home disappointed after the final table set to take place December 19. Still, they will all try their best to hang on for as long as possible as every single pay jump will be massive.
WPT Prime Championship Making Poker History
The second running of the WPT Prime Championship at the Wynn is certainly one for poker history books. Attracting a crowd of over 10,000, the tournament completely shattered its original guarantee and easily exceeded everyone’s expectations.
The winner of the first-ever WPT Prime Championship took home $712,650, so this year’s champion is looking at the first place worth almost two times that. This shows just how much the brand has grown over a short span, and, on a larger scale, just how much the interest in live poker events is booming all over the globe.
The tournament got off to a slower start, with “just” over 1,600 entries for the Day 1A flight. This, however, was a great indicator of things to come, as it is a common knowledge that later flights attract more players.
Following three flights followed that expectation to the letter, with each showing an increase of about 30% over the previous one. The Day 1D flight thus attracted 3,757 entries, bringing the total to an impressive 10,512.
What’s perhaps equally as impressive as the massive turnout is how WPT and Wynn handled the situation. There were zero problems over the four days of play, and while the entire team working hard behind the scenes played a part, Matt Savage certainly has every reason to be quite proud.
Action gets underway in our $1,100 @WPTPrime Championship with just 9 players remaining each guaranteed a minimum payout of $135,850!
We'll play down to the Final 6 today before the televised Final Table next week!
Follow along all of the action on https://t.co/VsXkFVWv7K -… https://t.co/TzL4CXG4mn pic.twitter.com/k6cBwhQq6k
— WPT Prime (@WPTPrime) December 13, 2023
Big Final Table Awaits
The remaining six players will reconvene on Tuesday, December 19, to play out what will be the biggest final table of their lives.
The most experienced player in the bunch is Calvin Anderson with over $3.5 million in live tournament cashes and four WSOP bracelets to his name. He’ll be starting the final table second in chips, with a stack of 99.5 million.
Leading the charge with 123 million in chips is Jay Lu, a US player with just over $40k in tournament earnings, so he’ll be adding a significant sum to that number no matter what.
Bob Buckenmayer is sitting in third in chip counts, with a stack of 76 million. With just over $1,000,000 in cashes spanning over 15 years of recorded history on Hendon Mob, he’s certainly had a fair bit of experience. His biggest win to date is the 17th place finish in the 2012 Main Event to the tune of $370,000.
The remaining three are all bunched together in terms of chip counts. Jon Glendinning is returning to the stack of 44.4 million, while Valeriy Pak and Aaron Pinson are sitting at around 39 million both. Of these three, Pak is the only one with seven figures in live cashes.
Players will be coming back to 1,000,000/2,000,000 with 2,000,000 big blind ante, so those with larger stacks will have plenty of ammo to work with. The three short stacks are in a danger zone with around 20 big blinds to start the day, but we have certainly seen much bigger comebacks in poker.
There are many exciting things happening at the WPT World Championship Festival right now, but the WPT Prime Championship final table will steal the show on December 19. One player will walk away almost $1.4 million richer after conquering a $1k tournament, and that’s simply not something we see every day!
