For the past three days, professional poker players have been pouring into the Encore Ballroom right on time for the start of day of the WPT World Championship. Perhaps it’s been in an effort to squeeze out every hand of play with the army of qualifiers and shot-takers in this massive event.
Even so, there’s still something to be said about the benefits of utilizing max-late reg – so says Phil Ivey. On Day 1C, at the very last moment, the WPT Ambassador finally put up his $10,400 buy-in and picked up his seat in the biggest tournament in WPT’s 20-year history.
And he wasn’t the only one to wait until the very last second. As the players stampeded back to the tables from their 90-minute dinner break, Phil Hellmuth was spotted, chips and seat card in hand, headed to the tables to take another shot. All of the players hopping into the tournament, sit down with roughly 50 bbs at the start of Level 7.
An astounding 1,293 entries on Day 1C (added to the 615 entries of Day 1A and 1,052 players on Day 1B) created a total field of 2,960 entries and a prize pool of more than $29 million – nearly double the original $15 million guarantee.
The unexpectedly large prize pool is just another piece of history for this event – the largest single payday ever for the WPT. First place is scheduled to win more than $4 million, eclipsing the $3,970,415 first-place prize won by Carlos Mortensen back in 2007 when the WPT World Championship was a $25,000 buy-in. Additionally, all six members of the final table will take home at least $1,000,000.
Final Numbers
Entries: 2960
Prize Pool: $29,008,000
- 1st – $4,136,000 + $10,400 Seat to 2023 WC
- 2nd – $2,830,000
- 3rd – $2,095,000
- 4th – $1,608,000
- 5th – $1,301,000
- 6th – $1,001,050
370 players (12.5%) will make the money with a mincash worth $17,400.
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