WPT Prime Championship Underway; Will it Top 10,000 Entrants Again?

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Dec 08, 2024 3 min read

'Tis the season for major poker tournament action at Wynn Las Vegas — more specifically, the 2024 World Poker Tour (WPT) World Championship festival.

This year's festivities kicked off Dec. 3 with Sunday being the start of the $1,100 WPT Prime Championship, a $5 million guaranteed tournament. The 2023 edition of this event had an almost unimaginable 10,512 entrants. Poker pro Calvin Anderson won it for nearly $1.4 million.

The Defending Champ Has Arrived

The page has been turned from the 2023 WPT at Wynn series. It's now all about putting up big numbers again this month in the World Poker Tour's season-ending festival. If Day 1a of the Prime Championship is any indication of things to come, this series is going to be massive.

The first Day 1 flight attracted 1,263 entrants with three more chances for players to enter in the coming days. Will it top last year's field? Matt Savage, Executive Tour Director for the World Poker Tour, thinks it's possible.

"I hope so, but I don't think we're quite going to get to 10,000. It would be nice," Savage told PokerNews during Day 1a.

Savage expects the field this year won't be far off the 2023 field that was larger than even the WPT staff had anticipated. The Wynn-Encore convention center was jam-packed on Sunday for the first major tournament of the series. Pros such as Joe McKeehen, Freddy Deeb, Matt Salsberg, and the defending champion (Anderson) were among the hoard of players in attendance.

Dan Sepiol also entered the first session of the WPT Prime Championship. The Indiana native is returning to Wynn one year after taking down the $10,400 buy-in WPT World Championship for over $5 million. He's wrapping up a 12-month period that has included $7 million in live tournament cashes, according to the Hendon Mob. Oh, and he scooped a $1 million prize in a recent daily fantasy sports contest.

Competition for Players

The month of December has become prime time for tournament poker around the world, with the World Series of Poker Paradise (WSOPP) taking place in the Bahamas, the PokerStars European Poker Tour (EPT) running in Prague, and of course the WPT World Championship in Las Vegas. All these events are currently in action competing against each other. But, as Savage said, there's enough players to go around.

"I think it impacts it a bit," Savage said when asked how much the competing events have on the WPT World Championship attendance. "But I also think that makes these tournaments all that much more valuable for people that are playing them. I mean, if you look around and you don't see all the big name players that are playing for all that money in the Bahamas, it makes these fields more enticing, and so I think the players see that and notice that and are coming here as well. So, the numbers so far in this series have been tremendous, so I don't think it's going to impact it that much."

Poker players in the WPT World Championship have spoken highly about the venue the past two years, and it's likely that has played a role in why the festival continues to bring in so many players despite heavy competition with the EPT and WSOPP. The partnership between the Wynn and the World Poker Tour appears to be a match made in heaven. But will it continue long into the future?

"I sure hope so. I would love to be here forever. I think this is an amazing venue for us. I hope it goes forever," Savage said.

Savage praised the quality of the dealers and poker room management at Wynn.

The 2024 WPT World Championship festival will have many of the same major events as in 2022 and 2023, including the $10,400 WPT World Championship (Dec. 14) and WPT Ladies Championship (Dec. 14). But the series will also include a new and historic $5 million ClubWPT Gold Invitational Freeroll starting Dec. 13. Over 1,500 players have already or will win a Golden Passport, which includes a ticket into the record-setting freeroll and a free room at Wynn.

We're just getting started here at Wynn in what figures to be an exciting two weeks of poker in Las Vegas. Stay tuned to PokerNews throughout the series for daily feature stories, interviews, and updates from the floor.

*Images courtesy of the World Poker Tour.

Full WPT World Championship Festival Schedule

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