Dylan Smith Wins Last WPT Title Prior to WPT World Championship
The World Poker Tour season now matches the calendar year, which means the WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas wraps the main tour and WPT Prime tour for the year. With the wrap of the WPT Seminole Rock ‘N’ Roll Poker Open Championship in Florida at the beginning of December, everything for the 2024 WPT season boils down to the finale at Wynn.
With that said, the WPT Player of the Year race is open. While Yunkyu Song holds the points lead heading to Las Vegas, the most recent champion – Dylan Smith – holds the earnings lead. And according to the World Poker Tour itself, anyone in the top 47 of the POY points list has the opportunity to soar to the top of the leaderboard and win the Player of the Year title.
2024 WPT Main Tour Results
The first live World Poker Tour championship-style event of 2024 was in Cambodia. For the main tour only, the results for the year leading up to the WPT World Championship were as follows:
- $3,500 WPT Cambodia Championship: Konstantin Held ($361,310) in 3-way deal
- $3,500 Rolling Thunder Championship: Casey Sandretto ($246,600)
- $5,000 WPT Voyage Championship: Aram Oganyan ($214,245)
- $3,500 WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown Championship: Josh Reichard ($839,300)
- $3,800 WPT Choctaw Championship: James Mackey ($361,600)
- CA$3,500 WPT Montreal Championship: David Dongwoo Ko (CA$434,900)
- AU$8,000 WPT Australia Championship: James Obst (AU$585,359)
- CA$3,500 WPT Playground Championship: Michael Wang (CA$384,738) in 2-way deal
- $5,000 WPT bestbet Scramble Championship: Nick Yunis ($315,791)
- $3,500 WPT Seminole Rock ‘N’ Roll Poker Open Championship: Dylan Smith ($662,200)
This excludes WPT Global online series, Alpha8 high rollers and WPT500 events.
2024 WPT Prime Results
The Prime tour kicked off its live series year in France and had another whirlwind trip around the globe in 2024. The results of these live WPT Prime events were:
- €1,100 WPT Prime Aix-en-Provence Championship: Yakiv Syzghanov (€133,400
- €1,100 WPT Prime Amsterdam Championship: Rutger Hennen (€208,095)
- $1,100 WPT Prime Voyage Championship: Gregory De Faria ($155,400
- €1,100 WPT Prime Slovakia Championship: Fabian Gumz (€117,980)
- AU$2,000 WPT Prime Gold Coast Championship: Lorenz Schollhorn (AU$401,510)
- CA$1,150 WPT Prime Montreal: Jikai Zhang (CA$165,070)
- €1,100 WPT Prime Sanremo Championship: Priamo Carta (€124,700)
- TW35,000 WPT Prime Taiwan Championship: Jereld Sam (TW8,065,000)
- $1,100 WPT Prime Cyprus Championship: Tudor Purice ($183,270)
- CHF1,100 WPT Prime Liechtenstein Championship: Marc Sen (CHF209,120)
- £1,100 WPT Prime UK Championship: Tim Chung (£67,660)
- CA$1,150 WPT Prime Playground Championship: Yunkyu Song (CA$222,270)
- €1,100 WPT Prime Paris Championship: Hugues Girard (€170,000)
Again, this list does not include any WPT Global online results or other mid-range buy-ins not labeled as WPT Prime events.
WPT Player of the Year Race
The only two tournaments that still award player points for the 2024 season are the WPT Prime Championship and WPT World Championship, both happening in the coming days and weeks in Las Vegas at Wynn.
As it stands going into the Wynn series, the Player of the Year leaderboard shows the following in the top ten:
- 1. Yunkyu Song: 2,275 points / $530,010 earnings (5 cashes, 1 final table, 0 wins)
- 2. Dylan Smith: 1,825 points / $892,200 earnings (2 cashes, 2 final tables, 1 win)
- 3. Eric Afriat: 1,750 points / $434,352 earnings (5 cashes, 2 final tables 0 wins)
- 4. Landon Tice: 1,700 points / $795,000 earnings (2 cashes, 2 final tables, 0 wins)
- 5. Dan Stavila: 1,525 points / $277,306 earnings (6 cashes, 1 final table, 0 wins)
- 6. Josh Reichard: 1,425 points / $853,400 earnings (3 cashes, 1 final table, 1 win)
- 7. Travis Endersby: 1,400 points / $392,330 earnings (2 cashes, 0 final tables, 0 wins)
- 8. Michael Wang: 1,200 points / $327,179 earnings (3 cashes, 1 final table, 1 win)
- 9. David Dongwoo Ko: 1,200 points / $323,426 earnings (3 cashes, 1 final table, 1 win)
- 10. James Mackey: 1,100 points / $361,600 earnings (1 cash, 1 final table, 1 win)
Numerous other players in the top 50 did not win a title this year, like Jesse Lonis, Adam Hendrix, Francis Anderson, and Brad Owen. Notably, there is not one woman in the top 50. In fact, there are no women in the top 100. The first woman on the list comes in at 118th place – Kasey Mills – with 325 points for two cashes.
Welcome to the @WPT World Championship at @WynnLasVegas! 🏆 pic.twitter.com/1j7BryfJY3
— World Poker Tour (@WPT) December 9, 2024
