WPT Wraps Historic Season and Announces 2023 Events
Much has been said about the World Poker Tour in recent weeks. The company just celebrated its 20th anniversary throughout 2022 and ended it with a record-breaking WPT World Championship at Wynn in Las Vegas.
Three weeks of tournaments at Wynn included a range of mixed games and high rollers, along with a Ladies Championship, WPT Prime Championship, and WPT World Championship Main Event. The series finished with a woman, Cherish Andrews, as the Player of the Festival and set numerous field records. For example, the $200K guarantee on the Ladies Championship was the highest guarantee ever on a women-only event, though the actual prize pool broke through that number with $560,660 in the pot. And the Main Event of all main events set an ambitious $15M guarantee but nearly doubled that when that prize pool exceeded $29M.
The reviews of the Wynn series were extremely positive, already setting higher expectations and prompting excitement for the next one in 2023.
Lost in the hubbub, somewhat, was the completion of Season XX of the World Poker Tour and the end of the first WPT Prime season.
Final WPT Season XX Numbers
For the first time in WPT history, the World Poker Tour season ran in conjunction with the calendar year. Overall, for the main tour, Season XX hosted ten events. In total for the Main Event of each stop only, they delivered 13,544 entries and paid 1,700 players. And those ten Main Event tournaments created prize pools that totaled $70,797,900.
It culminated in the largest WPT World Championship in WPT history. It was a massive undertaking that turned into a massive success. And the $10K buy-in Main Event that was the culmination of all of the efforts with Wynn Las Vegas tallied a prize pool of more than $29M from 2,960 entries. In the end, Eliot Hudon of Canada beat Benny Glaser of England to take the title and more than $4.1M in prize money.
Let’s take a look at the entirety of the WPT Season XX Main Event results:
| January 2022 | $3,500 | WPT Lucky Hearts Poker Open |
| Total entries: | 1982 | |
| Total prize pool: | $6,342,400 | ($2M GTD) |
| Players paid: | 248 | |
| Minimum payout: | $6,275 | |
| Final table results: | 1st place: | Alexander Yen (USA) $975,240 |
| 2nd place: | Anton Wigg (Sweden) $650,180 | |
| 3rd place: | Daniel Lazrus (USA) $482,380 | |
| 4th place: | Nicholas Verderamo (USA) $361,130 | |
| 5th place: | Josh Kay (USA) $272,830 | |
| 6th place: | Omar Lakhdari (Algeria) $208,025 | |
| April 2022 | $3,500 | WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown |
| Total entries: | 2010 | |
| Total prize pool: | $6,432,000 | ($3M GTD) |
| Players paid: | 252 | |
| Minimum payout: | $5,650 | |
| Final table results: | 1st place: | Mark Davis (USA) $1,000,300 |
| 2nd place: | Darren Elias (USA) $660,000 | |
| 3rd place: | Marcos Exterkotter (Brazil) $490,000 | |
| 4th place: | Viet Vo (USA) $370,000 | |
| 5th place: | Andrew Barfield (USA) $280,000 | |
| 6th place: | Mike Laufer (USA) $215,000 | |
| May 2022 | $3,800 | WPT Choctaw (Oklahoma) |
| Total entries: | 787 | |
| Total prize pool: | $2,754,500 | ($2M GTD) |
| Players paid: | 99 | |
| Minimum payout: | $6,700 | |
| Final table results: | 1st place: | Chance Kornuth (USA) $486,600 |
| 2nd place: | Steve Buckner (USA)$320,000 | |
| 3rd place: | Ray Qartomy (USA) $235,000 | |
| 4th place: | James Hundt (USA) $175,000 | |
| 5th place: | Kristen Foxen (Canada)$135,000 | |
| 6th place: | James Mackey (USA) $101,000 | |
| July 2022 | $5K buy-in | WPT Venetian Las Vegas |
| Total entries: | 1178 | |
| Total prize pool: | $5,418,800 | ($4M GTD) |
| Players paid: | 148 | |
| Minimum payout: | $8,500 | |
| Final table results: | 1st place: | Robert Mizrachi (USA) $894,100 |
| 2nd place: | Mike Vanier (USA) $595,000 | |
| 3rd place: | Yulian Bogdanov (Bulgaria) $440,000 | |
| 4th place: | Leon Sturm (Germany) $327,000 | |
| 5th place: | Raul Manzanares (Spain) $247,000 | |
| 6th place: | Javier Zarco (Spain) $188,000 | |
| August 2022 | $5K buy-in | WPT Legends of Poker (Bicycle Casino) |
| Total entries: | 642 | |
| Total prize pool: | $3,113,700 | ($2.5M GTD) |
| Players paid: | 81 | |
| Minimum payout: | $9,350 | |
| Final table results: | 1st place: | Joshua Pollock (USA) $573,350 |
| 2nd place: | Ray Qartomy (USA) $380,000 | |
| 3rd place: | Matthew Wantman (USA) $280,000 | |
| 4th place: | Aaron Motoyama (USA) $207,000 | |
| 5th place: | Lei Lei (USA) $156,000 | |
| 6th place: | Adam Hendrix (USA) $119,000 | |
| September 2022 | $3500 buy-in | WPT Seminole Hard Rock Tampa |
| Total entries: | 1165 | |
| Total prize pool: | $3,728,000 | ($1M GTD) |
| Players paid: | 147 | |
| Minimum payout: | $5,950 | |
| Final table results: | 1st place: | Corey Wade (USA) $471,686 |
| 2nd place: | Fred Paradis (USA) $441,686 | |
| 3rd place: | Brock Wilson (USA) $411,678 | |
| 4th place: | Steven McKoy (USA) $226,000 | |
| 5th place: | Seth Berger (USA) $170,000 | |
| 6th place: | David Tuthill (USA) $130,000 | |
| September 2022 | A$5K buy-in | WPT Australia (Star Gold Coast) |
| Total entries: | 710 | |
| Total prize pool: | $3,550,000 | |
| Players paid: | 89 | |
| Minimum payout: | $6,138 | |
| Final table results: | 1st place: | David Tang (Australia) A$647,470 |
| 2nd place: | Po Ho (Australia) A$421,635 | |
| 3rd place: | Naj Ajez (Australia) A$310,675 | |
| 4th place: | Daisuke Ogita (Japan) $A231,505 | |
| 5th place: | Josh Hutchins (Australia) A$174,480 | |
| 6th place: | De Kun Li (Taiwan) A$133,025 | |
| October 2022 | $10K buy-in | WPT Five Diamond (Bellagio) |
| Total entries: | 569 | |
| Total prize pool: | $5,519,300 | ($5M GTD) |
| Players paid: | 72 | |
| Minimum payout: | $19,050 | |
| Final table results: | 1st place: | Chad Eveslage (USA) $1,042,300 |
| 2nd place: | Steve Buckner (USA) $690,000 | |
| 3rd place: | Michael Gathy (Belgium) $505,000 | |
| 4th place: | Brian Kim (USA) $377,000 | |
| 5th place: | Albert Calderon (USA) $283,000 | |
| 6th place: | David Kim (USA) $216,000 | |
| November 2022 | $3,500 buy-in | WPT Seminole Rock ‘N’ Roll Poker Open |
| Total entries: | 1541 | |
| Total prize pool: | $4,931,200 | ($2M GTD) |
| Players paid: | 193 | |
| Minimum payout: | $5,600 | |
| Final table results: | 1st place: | Andrew Wilson (England) $785,800 |
| 2nd place: | Josh Kay (USA) $525,000 | |
| 3rd place: | Chad Eveslage (USA) $390,000 | |
| 4th place: | Brian Altman (USA) $290,000 | |
| 5th place: | Gediminas Uselis (Lithuania) $219,000 | |
| 6th place: | Robel Andemichael $167,000 | |
| December 2022 | $10K buy-in | WPT World Championship (Wynn Las Vegas) |
| Total entries: | 2960 | |
| Total prize pool: | $29,008,000 | ($15M GTD) |
| Players paid: | 371 | |
| Minimum payout: | $17,400 | |
| Final table results: | 1st place: | Eliot Hudon (Canada) $4,136,000 |
| 2nd place: | Benny Glaser (England) $2,830,000 | |
| 3rd place: | Jean-Claude Moussa (USA) $2,095,000 | |
| 4th place: | Adam Adler (USA) $1,608,000 | |
| 5th place: | Frank Funaro (USA) $1,301,000 | |
| 6th place: | Colton Blomberg (USA) $1,001,050 |
WPT Prime Debut
Amidst the World Poker Tour’s anniversary announcements was one of rebranding. They ended the WPTDeepStacks tour and replaced it with the new WPT Prime. The buy-in levels stayed at or near $1K for Main Events, but the series tended to go to more destinations around the world and offer generally more affordable tournaments and series.
The inaugural WPT Prime season didn’t actually begin until May with stops in Vietnam, Australia, and Cambodia. They then went to Madrid and Taiwan before wrapping it up with a Prime Championship at the WPT Wynn series at the end of 2022. That Prime finale did better than predicted as well. Its $1K price point had a $2M guarantee, but the entries totaling 5,430 took the prize pool over $5.2M, more than 2.5 times the promised amount.
Here are the Main Event results for those six WPT Prime stops of 2022:
| May 2022 | VND25M | WPT Prime Vietnam |
| Total entries: | 777 | |
| Total prize pool: | $738,020 | (VND8M GTD, actual VND17M) |
| Players paid: | 96 | |
| Minimum payout: | $1,745 | |
| Winner: | 1st place: | Zarvan Tumboli (India) $131,394 |
| June 2022 | A$1,500 | WPT Prime Gold Coast |
| Total entries: | 896 | |
| Total prize pool: | $824,756 | |
| Players paid: | 112 | |
| Minimum payout: | $1,706 | |
| Winner: | 1st place: | Yang Lei (Australia) $141,413 |
| August 2022 | $1,100 | WPT Prime Cambodia |
| Total entries: | 1050 | |
| Total prize pool: | $1,008,100 | |
| Players paid: | 131 | |
| Minimum payout: | $1,810 | |
| Winner: | 1st place: | David Erquiaga (Philippines) $137,008 |
| September 2022 | € 1,100 | WPT Prime Madrid |
| Total entries: | 621 | |
| Total prize pool: | $589,166 | |
| Players paid: | 78 | |
| Minimum payout: | $1,847 | |
| Winner: | 1st place: | Oleksii Koiev (Ukraine) $87,246 |
| November 2022 | TWD33K | WPT Prime Taiwan |
| Total entries: | 877 | |
| Total prize pool: | $809,133 | |
| Players paid: | 111 | |
| Minimum payout: | $1,185 | |
| Winner: | 1st place: | Marc Inizan (France) $138,939 |
| December 2022 | $1,100 | WPT Prime Championship Wynn |
| Total entries: | 5430 | |
| Total prize pool: | $5,267,100 | ($2M GTD) |
| Players paid: | 677 | |
| Minimum payout: | $1,750 | |
| Winner: | 1st place: | Stephen Song (USA) $712,650 |
Happy Holidays and Happy New Year from all of us @WPT!
We can't wait to see you in 2023!
View the first half of next year's schedule here: https://t.co/wCpghPTmjS pic.twitter.com/ZAdylPI5XY
— World Poker Tour (@WPT) December 24, 2022
Starting Strong in 2023
As the WPT World Championship was making history in Las Vegas, the tour decided to release the first half of its 2023 schedule for Season XXI.
The season will start with a number of WPT Prime stops, starting in Paris in late January and then heading to Australia, Cambodia, Amsterdam, and India.
The main tour doesn’t host its first event April. The WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown will kick the season into high gear and goes from California to Florida and Oklahoma before returning to California.
The schedule thus far is only through June, and there is room in the lineup for more stops to be added if agreements are signed in short order.
For now, the schedule – for the Main Events only, not entire festivals – is as follows:
-January 31-February 5: WPT Prime Paris at Club Circus Paris in France
#WPTPrimeParis is less than a month away @ClubCircusParis @TexapokerEvents and features an €1,100 Main Event with a livestreamed Final Table! 🇫🇷
Festival Dates: Jan 22 – Feb 5
Main Event Dates: Jan 31 – Feb 5More Info: https://t.co/EPM3FavMTB pic.twitter.com/RAlusfLMm5
— World Poker Tour (@WPT) December 28, 2022
-March 2-6: WPT Prime Gold Coast at Star Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia
-March 16-20: WPT Prime Cambodia at Naga World Integrated Resort in Phnom Penh, Cambodia
-March 29-April 1: WPT Prime Amsterdam at Holland Casino in Netherlands
-April 1-4: WPT Rolling Thunder (main tour) at Thunder Valley Casino in Lincoln, California
-April 13-17: WPT Prime India at Deltin Royale Casino in Goa, India
-April 28-May 2: WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown (main tour) in Florida
-May 5-8: WPT Choctaw (main tour) in Durant, Oklahoma
-May 11-15: WPT Prime Slovakia at Card Casino Bratislava in Slovakia
-May 21-25: WPT Gardens Poker Championship (main tour) in Hawaiian Gardens, California
-May 25-29: WPT Prime Vietnam at Crown Poker Club in Hanoi, Vietnam
-June 7-11: WPT Prime Sanremo at Casino di Sanremo in Italy
The new stops in the mix are Slovakia, the new location in Vietnam, and Sanremo on the Italian Riviera.
WPT CEO Adam Pliska called Season XXI one to anticipate, as there are new partnerships interspersed with relationships with “longstanding staples” of the WPT.
You thought we were done with surprises?
We announced the first half of our Season XXI Schedule!
First 3 Stops:
Jan 31 – Feb 5: #WPTPrimeParis @ClubCircusParis
Mar 2 – Mar 6: #WPTPrimeGoldCoast @TheStar_GC
Mar 16 – Mar 20: #WPTPrimeCambodia @NagaWorldhttps://t.co/vhtzu6klJg— World Poker Tour (@WPT) December 15, 2022
