WPT SHRPS Festival Comes to a Close

It’s been an incredible three weeks for poker players in Florida, as Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood once again threw one of the top WPT festivals of the year.

WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown brought out thousands of players from all parts of the United States and beyond, who took part in dozens of events across different buyin levels and game types.

The main highlight of the festival, of course, was the WPT SHRPS Championship event, which played down to a final table of six yesterday and wrapped up for the time being, with action set to continue in Las Vegas on May 29.

For those who were not lucky enough to make a deep run in the Championship event, plenty of other opportunities were available, and many top players used those opportunities to their advantage.

We take a look back at the WPT SHRPS festival of 2024 and bring you some of the key moments that made it another huge success for the World Poker Tour.

Chance Kornuth Lifts the Heads Up Trophy

This year’s WPT SHRPS festival started off with dozens of smaller buyin events, which allowed players to build up a bankroll and some momentum leading up to the Championship.

For the high rollers, however, such events were not interesting enough to travel out to Florida, which made the $10,000 Heads Up event played on April 15 and 16 the first major event of this series.

The event was capped at 32 players, but having started several days before the Championship, only managed to attract 28 entries in total.

This amounted to a prize pool of $266,000, which was set to be shared among the top four finishers following a total of five rounds of heads up play.

Landon Tice and Stoyan Madanzhiev were eliminated in the semi-final matches and took home $33,250 each, a heft return on their investment following just a few short heads up matches.

However, it was Scott Baumstein and Chance Kornuth who would play for the big bucks, with the latter taking the win and cashing for $133,000, one half of the entire prize pool.

Baumstein had to contend with $66,500, as the two players with over $20 million in combined tournament winnings called it a day and ended the first big buyin event of the festival.

Chance Kornuth at WPT SHRPS Heads Up Event 2024

Collopy, Ausmus, and Wilson with High Roller Wins

The “super pros” got plenty of action on top of the Heads Up event at the WPT SHRPS festival, as a number of high roller events were added to the calendar.

The first of those was the $50,000 Super High Roller, which allowed for one re-entry per player and started on April 17.

This event was perhaps scheduled too early, as many players who would make it into town for the Championship were not there yet. As a result, only 12 players entered the tournament.

James Collopy managed to win ahead of Sergio Aido and Shannon Shorr, taking home $291,000 for his win, a quick quarter of a million profit in a one-day event.

The very next day, the $25,500 PLO High Roller was on the schedule, and 19 Pot Limit Omaha aficionados made their way to the tournament area.

This time around, it was Jeremy Ausmus who came out on top, a win good for $206,400, which were added to his impressive $17 million in tournament cashes.

The biggest high roller event by far was the $25,500 NLH High Roller on April 22 and 23, which brought in all the big players who busted out of the Championship and were looking for one last chance to win on the trip.

This time around, 69 entries were made and 11 players made the money, making it a much more substantial event.

Chance Kornuth once again made the final table but busted in 7^th place, while Brandon Wilson edged over Min Zhang to win $601,800 for his first place finish.

WPT SHRPS Final Table Is Set

The focal point of the entire festival was of course the WPT SHRPS Championship, which featured thethe usual buyin of $3,500 and attracted 1,869 entries in total, creating a prize pool of $5,980,800.

While the event slightly underperformed compared to last year’s iteration, it still made for one of the biggest WPT events played this year.

Among the mass of players who made an appearance, we saw hundreds of familiar faces, including the likes of Shaun Deeb, Erik Seidel, Josh Arieh, and many others.

Yet, as the days went by, most of them were eliminated from the tournament, leaving us with just 16 players for Day 4 action, which was the final day played at the Hard Rock.

Action played down to six players, all of whom will return to play out the final table and chase the $839,300 first place prize and the elusive Mike Sexton WPT Champions Cup.

Here is a look at the final chip counts ahead of the WPT SHRPS final table:

Position	Player	Chip Stack
1^st	Dylan Smith	28,400,000 (142 bb)
2^nd	Josh Reichard	20,575,000 (103 bb)
3^rd	Landon Tice	13,700,000 (69 bb)
4^th	Alex Queen	13,450,000 (67 bb)
5^th	Jesse Lonis	12,350,000 (62 bb)
6^th	Aaron Kupin	4,925,000 (25 bb)

WPT Season Continues in Choctaw and Osaka

This year’s WPT season has been one of the most international yet, with events spanning across continents and offering players across the globe a chance to play for WPT glory.

Many of the players who just played in WPT SHRPS will be traveling over to Durant, Oklahoma, to take part in WPT Choctaw, which starts on May 3.

The very same day, across the globe, Asian players will be lining up to play in WPT Osaka, as the Tour continues to expand and bring premium poker games to brand new locations.

Two other stops of the WPT will be played this May in Montreal and Vietnam, making it another extremely active month for everyone involved with the Tour.

For all European players out there who might feel a little left out, WPT will be coming back to Europe in early June, as WPT San Remo looks to be one of the most attractive events of the summer season.