The World Poker Tour progresses ahead with its long-anticipated WPT Championship which features a guaranteed prize pool amounting to some $3 million. Over the weekend the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino located in Hollywood, Florida saw the second starting flight of the tournament as well as the official Day 2 of action which drew back all surviving players.
The official start of poker action took place on Friday when the first starting flight commenced and attracted the first batch of players to the poker tables. Then on Sunday Day 1b was greenlighted and this attracted as many as 663 players to the poker field. From this large number of enthusiasts willing to put their skills to the test, only 253 made it to the end of the day. The chip leader among them was Eric Afriat from Canada who managed to generate as much as 222,500 during his participation on the poker tables.
He is a member of the WPT Champions Club and this proved his proficiency. This is how the game reached its final stage for registration and the total number of entries amounted to 1,309. With the help of this large interest towards participation in the poker tournament, this means that the WPT Championship is the fifth largest poker tournament in the history of the World Poker Tour. One of the best news for all participants is the fact that the guaranteed prize pool was surpassed at the end of the registration window.
Progress of the Poker Tournament
Each player feeling confident enough to enter the live tournament has to pay a buy-in amounting to some $3,500. This, in turn, leads to the large cash prizes that the best of them are going to receive at the end of the poker tournament. The guaranteed prize pool which comes with this event amounts to some $3,000,000, but there are forecasts that the eventual total prize pool will surpass this amount, due to the large interest towards participation.
All top positions on the official leader board will have the chance to claim a fair share of the total prize pool $4,188,800. Only 164 players will make it to the cash after the money bubble bursts which is why all participants are looking forward to the next stages of the game. The long-anticipated Day 2 of the poker tournament commenced on Sunday and there were some 480 players who returned for it.
After long hours of poker battle on the felt the player pool was reduced to only 81 participants that will continue ahead to Day 3. The chip leader among them was Joseph Cheong who is a familiar face at the WPT. He was the chip leader on Day 1b of the WPTDeepStacks Immokalee, but he could not make it far in that tournament. Now he has the chance to claim the throne with his chip stack of 1,864,000. Poker action continues and promises riveting duels on the tables.
