Jared Bleznick Goes Back-to-Back in High Stakes Duel 4g4cw
The second High Stakes Duel battle between Jared Bleznick and Patrik Antonius went the way of the former on PokerGO…
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Players will come from far and wide to compete in the $10,400-entry WPT World Championship. In 2023, the prizepool, which had a hefty guarantee of $40 million, paid out a top prize of $5,282,954 to Daniel Sepiol. With a WPT Main Tour attendance record set last December, could the 2024 festival be even bigger?
Last year, Daniel Sepiol turned out to be the champion, winning just under $5.3 million as he took over from Eliot Hudon as the reigning WPT World Champion. It may not be the World Series of Poker Main Event, but it’s getting closer and closer in size and reputation every year.
On the back of the inaugural WPT Voyage, where Gregory De Faria both won life-changing money, the World Championship is going to take things to another level.
“With great pride, we unveil the festival dates for the highly anticipated 2024 WPT World Championship,” said WPT CEO Adam Pliska as the dates were announced as December 3rd – 23rd 2024. “The tradition continues as we enter our third year alongside the incredible Wynn Las Vegas team, so mark your calendars in preparation for what is sure to be another memorable December.”
The inaugural WPT World Championship was won in December 2022 for an incredible $4.1 million top prize by Eliot Hudon. With a $29 million prizepool, it was eye-watering viewing for poker fans around the world.
“We are ecstatic to continue our partnership with the World Poker Tour for the third consecutive year.”
Having set out to beat the $29 million gathered in the prizepool in 2022, a year later, the bar was set ludicrously high. A guaranteed prizepool of $40 million saw 3,835 players almost make it, with overlay only taking a small nibble into the bottom line at the WPT paid out one of the biggest prizepools in poker history. Daniel Sepiol was the winner, taking home almost $5.3 million as the final table, which featured Andrew ‘Chewy’ Lichtenberger and Chris Moorman played out to hundreds of thousands of fans.
Will the $40 million guarantee be back? There’s no official word yet on that yet. It seems highly likely that there won’t be an increase, given how busy last December was with a trio of top-tier tournaments taking place within days of each other. The European Poker Tour’s Prague Main Event and WSOP Paradise Main Event both impacted on WPT World Championship figure and yet it only just fell short of the guarantee. We’d imagine they aim for $40 million again.
The action will resume at the Wynn in Las Vegas, and Ryan Beauregard, executive director of poker operations at Wynn Las Vegas, couldn’t be happier that the world-famous venue is the host location for the third consecutive time.
“We are ecstatic to continue our partnership with the World Poker Tour for the third consecutive year,” he said. “Over the coming months, we’ll work diligently to craft an event schedule [that] poker players from all over the world won’t want to miss.”
Wynn Las Vegas are partnering for the third consecutive year to host the WPT® World Championship from December 3-23 at the renowned Las Vegas resort. The festival will serve as the pinnacle of Season XXII of the World Poker Tour and will crown a new World Champion.
Over 23 tournaments in 2023, the WPT World Championship festival awarded no fewer than 14 million-plus prizepools, a testament to the incredible footfall the schedule attracted. Everything was elite, from the tournament structures to the facilities. For many years, the World Poker Tour didn’t visit Vegas as expansively as the World Series of Poker did, for example. All that has changed.
In December of last year, a total of 33,712 entries were recorded across all events. Ove $100 million was awarded in prize money, with the $1,100-entry WPT Prime Championship setting a new record on the World Poker Tour for number of attendees, with 10,512 entries accumulating a $10m prizepool. With its $40m guarantee, the $10,400-entry WPT World Championship promised the biggest prizepool in live tournament poker as a guarantee.
Who knows just how big the 2024 WPT World Championship festival at Wynn Las Vegas will be. We’re going to assume that huge is an understatement.