Four WPT Prime Champions Chase $1.1M as Okamoto Leads WPT Prime Championship

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Dec 12, 2024 4 min read

The award-winning WPT Prime has established itself as the premier mid-stakes entry point for the World Poker Tour. Since its debut in 2022, the WPT Prime series has captured the attention of a new demographic of grinders, offering world-class poker at accessible buy-ins.

At the inaugural WPT World Championships, the WPT Prime Championship drew an impressive 5,430 entrants. Stephen Song claimed victory, taking home $712,650 from the $1,100 buy-in event. This remarkable turnout cemented the tournament as one of the most sought-after mid-stakes majors on the global circuit. The following year, the event grew to a staggering 10,512 entries. Calvin Anderson emerged as the champion, pocketing $1,386,280, a prize that underscored the WPT Prime Tour’s meteoric rise.

Throughout the next year, WPT Prime expanded its reach, with more stops and crowning champions across several continents and even at sea. After another successful season in 2024, the WPT Prime Championship returned to the Wynn Las Vegas, and once again showcased its status as the pinnacle event for its buy-in level.

Although this year’s entries fell slightly short of last year’s record-breaking peak, the 2024 WPT Prime Championship still attracted a massive field of 9,670 entrants, generating a prize pool of $9,379,900. With another seven-figure payday awaiting the champion, the tournament continues to live up to its reputation.

Across four starting flights, 1,206 players secured the $1,940 min-cash and advanced to Day 2, which kicks off at noon local time on Thursday, December 12.

Heading into Day 2, Japan's Shiina Okamoto leads the pack for the $1,162,350 up top after an exceptional Day 1a performance that saw her 40,000 starting stack swell to 1,705,000 (171 big blinds). Close behind is Jose Puente, who ended Day 1d with 1,519,000 (152 big blinds), while poker content creator Eric Chang bagged 1,392,000 (139 big blinds) during Day 1c to round out the top three chip counts heading into the tournament’s next stage.

WPT Prime Championship Top 10 Chip Counts

Girard, Gumz, Chung and Syzghanov Chase Chip Leaders

The chip leaders’ journey to poker glory is only just beginning, with three days of play remaining before a winner is crowned on Saturday, December 14. Meanwhile, a quartet of seasoned players in the field—each with the experience of triumphing in a WPT Prime event—are hunting them down in their pursuit of becoming double WPT Prime champions.

Hugues Girard, Fabian Gumz, Timothy Chung, and Yakiv Syzghanov are the 2024 WPT Prime titleholders still in contention. However, their paths to victory vary in difficulty, with some facing steeper challenges to go the distance.

Hugues Girard, who claimed the title at WPT Prime Paris in October, advanced through his Day 1 flight with ease, bagging 763,000 (76 big blinds). The Frenchman is enjoying a career-best year on the felt, with 2024 tournament earnings totaling $715,486. His achievements this year include two six-figure scores, two victories, and four runner-up finishes. A deep run in the WPT Prime Championship—something he’s well-positioned to achieve—could push Girard past the $1 million milestone in live earnings, with his current total standing at $989,232.

Fabian Gumz, an Austrian-based grinder, has been racking up tournament scores for the best part of a decade, and his WPT Prime Slovakia triumph in April marked his third-ever tournament win and first since 2018.

Gumz heads into Day 2 with 276,000 (28 big blinds), just below the average stack of 320,730. However, with over $2.4 million in career earnings, dismissing Gumz’s chances would be a mistake. The same can be said for Timothy Chung, the reigning WPT Prime UK champion, who remains a contender as he made it over the first hurdle with a stack of 234,000 (23 big blinds).

Timothy Chung added a second major title to his résumé with his WPT Prime victory, following his triumph at the 2022 GUKPT Main Event. Widely regarded as one of the sharpest tournament players in the United Kingdom, Chung is also a formidable force in the cash game scene, where he competes in games as high as $100/$200.

In a December interview, Chung shared how his passion for poker first began:

“I learned to play poker when I was 16 years old at my friend’s birthday party. They asked if we wanted to play poker and I said sure.”

“I was always really into games. I already knew the hand rankings prior to this, which made my learning a little bit easier. Then I learned a little more about it whilst playing on Facebook poker for play chips.”

Yakiv Syzghanov stands as the only other 2024 WPT Prime title winner still with a stack, and the Ukranian has the most work to do as he brings 170,000 (17 big blinds) when cards go in the air today.

Syzghanov was the first WPT Prime winner of the current season after he took down WPT Prime Aix-en-Provence in February. The $144,509 he pocketed stands as the biggest score of his career, and makes up a significant portion of his $233,195 total live earnings. Syzghanov picked up another WPT Prime Main Event payout in Paris, where he finished in 108th.

WPT Prime Championship Payouts

*First-place amount includes the winner's $10,400 entry into next year's WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas in 2025.

Calum has been a part of the PokerNews team since September 2021 after working in the UK energy sector. He played his first hand of poker in 2017 and immediately fell in love with the game. Calum has written for various poker outlets but found his home at PokerNews, where he has contributed to various articles and live updates, providing insights and reporting on major poker events, including the World Series of Poker (WSOP).

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