Full Schedule Announced for WPT World Championship at Wynn
The World Poker Tour and Wynn Las Vegas announced the schedule for the third iteration of the WPT World Championship at Wynn this December. Earlier in the year, poker players knew that the WPT-Wynn partnership would bring another December full of tournaments, but just recently, the duo announced the dates of the four key events. Now, the full schedule is available.
Two Big Surprises
Leave it to the World Poker Tour to do something different.
In the first year of the WPT World Championship at Wynn, organizers set the Main Event guarantee at $15M, and the turnout for the $10K buy-in event was so strong that the prize pool nearly hit $30M.
That led them to set the Main Event guarantee at an eye-popping $40M last year. It was quite a lofty goal, especially considering that the World Series of Poker lured some players to the Bahamas with bracelet events in December to try to steal the WPT’s thunder. It worked, as the WPT did better than the year before with Main Event attendance but failed to hit its guarantee.
The first two years of the $9,800 + $600 WPT World Championship Main Event showed:
- 2022 Main Event: 2,960 entries / $29,008,000 prize pool
- 2023 Main Event: 3,835 entries / $37,583,000 prize pool + $2,417,000 overlay = $40M
With the WPT having to pick up a hefty overlay, many players wondered what it would do this year.
Surprise 1: No Main Event Guarantee
In a surprise move, the World Poker Tour and Wynn decided not to put a guarantee on the WPT World Championship Main Event at all this year. None. Zero.
This decision was likely partly due to the $2.5M cost of a missed guarantee last year, as well as the WSOP putting some big guarantees on its WSOP Paradise tournaments. For example, the $2,500 buy-in WSOP Mini Main Event has a $5M guarantee and the $25K buy-in WSOP Super Main Event offers a $50M guarantee. If the WSOP wanted to play the “one-up” game, the WPT wasn’t going to play.
The WPT and Wynn are simply offering the $10K WPT WC Main Event as it has done the past two years without a prize pool guarantee. What will draw players to it is the overall care of the WPT and Wynn for their customers, the reputation the team has developed and the relationship with players.
Surprise 2: $5M Freeroll
The World Poker Tour is shifting its focus. Of course, the big prize pools for the Main Event, Prime Championship, and Alpha8 will all be highlights for players, fans, and staff alike, but the focus on freeroll players will bring new attention to an oft-undervalued audience.
The WPT will offer a freeroll to be played live at Wynn Las Vegas, wherein players who qualify for free will compete for $5M in prizes. This includes 100 seats in the $10K Main Event.
Ultimately, the freeroll will bring in approximately 2,000 players who win Golden Passports through free promotions and contests in the months leading up to the December live freeroll. And it will all be done in conjunction with the promotion and anticipation of the 2025 launch of ClubWPT Gold, the World Poker Tour’s online poker site for US players.
Introducing ClubWPT Gold and Freeroll
Poker players still love freerolls, which are almost exclusively offered in the online poker world. It is a way to play for real money without risking any of their own. Freerolls are the way some new players kickstart their bankrolls. Rarely, though, is there ever a live poker freeroll, one that offers players the chance to win more than just a few promotional prizes in a live poker tournament.
The World Poker Tour wanted to offer just this type of opportunity, and it figured out a way to do it in conjunction with the upcoming launch of its latest product.
ClubWPT has long been the WPT’s subscription-based online poker site for US players, since the traditional real-money online poker market in the US is still in its relative infancy. Players on ClubWPT paid a monthly subscription fee and played on the site for everything from cash to prizes to seats into WPT events.
ClubWPT Gold will take this into a new realm, operating as a sweepstakes poker site, akin to Global Poker. Players will compete on the site with virtual coins – Gold Coins, to be exact – that players can obtain through promotions. (There may be a way to purchase coins, but the details have yet to be revealed.) In the end, players can cash out their coins for cash and prizes.
While the site is not scheduled to launch until sometime in early 2025, the promotion begins now. The aforementioned freeroll is called the ClubWPT Gold $5M Invitational Freeroll, and it will play at Wynn Las Vegas December 13-15. Included in the $5M worth of cash and prizes will be 100 seats to the $10K WPT World Championship Main Event and $1M in cash to the winner of the freeroll.
How to Compete for Freeroll Seat
It’s free to become a member of ClubWPT Gold and try to win one of the 2,000 freeroll seats available. And there is no online poker play required at the new site, as it won’t launch until next year. The way this will happen is simple:
- Players interested in the freeroll can enter the required information at ClubWPTGold-dot-com. They will then need to confirm their email address and identity.
- ClubWPTGold will inform new members of promotions and contests in the coming weeks and months. Follow the instructions to compete.
- Players will compete in promotions and contests for 2,000 available Golden Passports.
The Golden Passport holders will then compete in the live ClubWPT Gold $5M Invitational Freeroll at Wynn Las Vegas, a three-day tournament starting on December 13. The entirety of the prize pool has yet to be revealed, but it will include:
- First-place prize of $1M
- At least 100 seats (worth $10K each) to WPT World Championship Main Event
Those who win Main Event seats will have time to enter that Main Event, as it will offer three starting flights: December 14, 15, and 16.
Important Dates
Considering the aforementioned information about the freeroll, there should be proper attention given to the highlighted events of the WPT World Championship at Wynn. The featured events are as follows:
- WPT Prime Championship: $1,100 buy-in / $5M guarantee
- Four starting flights December 8, 9, 10, and 11
- Final table December 14
- WPT Ladies Championship: $1,100 buy-in / $250K guarantee
- Official buy-in $11,100 but women receive discount of $10K
- Entire tournament plays December 14-15
- WPT World Championship Main Event: $10,400 buy-in
- Three starting flights December 14, 15, and 16
- Final table (Day 6) December 21 to be filmed for television
- WPT Seniors Championship: $1,100 buy-in / $500K guarantee
- Players must be 50 years of age or older
- Entire tournament plays December 18-19
Full WC Schedule
The events of the WPT World Championship are not numbered, but the tournaments and satellites together exceed 60 events.
As for the full series, it begins on Tuesday, December 3 and concludes with one event on Monday, December 23. Let’s do a rundown of the events excluding the events listed above and all satellites/qualifiers.
- Dec 3: $600 Limit O-8 ($50K GTD)
- Dec 3-7: $800 NLHE w/5 flights ($1M GTD)
- Dec 4: $600 HORSE ($50K GTD)
- Dec 6: $1,100 NLHE Turbo ($100K GTD)
- Dec 7-8: $1,600 NLHE Mystery Bounty ($500K GTD)
- Dec 8-9: $1,100 Limit O-8 ($100K GTD)
- Dec 8: $3K PLO ($250K GTD)
- Dec 8: $1,100 NLHE Turbo ($100K GTD)
- Dec 9: $3K NLHE 6-Max ($250K GTD)
- Dec 9: $1,100 PLO Turbo ($100K GTD)
- Dec 10: $600 Mix Triple Draw ($50K GTD)
- Dec 10: $600 NLHE Turbo ($50K GTD)
- Dec 13: $600 NLHE Turbo ($50K GTD)
- Dec 14: $1,100 5-Card PLO ($100K GTD)
- Dec 15: $600 TORSE ($50K GTD)
- Dec 16: $1,100 NLHE ($200K GTD)
- Dec 16: $1,100 Big O ($100K GTD)
- Dec 16: $1,600 NLHE Turbo Bounty ($100K GTD)
- Dec 17: $1,100 PLO ($100K GTD)
- Dec 17: $3K NLHE PKO ($300K GTD)
- Dec 17: $1,600 NLHE Turbo Bounty ($100K GTD)
- Dec 18-21: $3K NLHE w/2 flights ($3M GTD)
- Dec 18: $600 NLHE ($50K GTD)
- Dec 18-19: $25,800 WPT Alpha 8
- Dec 18: $1,100 PLO-8 ($100K GTD)
- Dec 19: $800 NLHE ($100K GTD)
- Dec 19-20: $2,200 HORSE Championship ($200K GTD)
- Dec 20-22: $1,600 NLHE Mystery Bounty w/3 flights ($1M GTD)
- Dec 20-22: $10K Seniors NLHE High Roller ($500K GTD)
- Dec 20: $1,100 Big Bet Mix ($100K GTD)
- Dec 20: $3K NLHE 6-Max ($500K GTD)
- Dec 20: $600 NLHE Turbo 6-Max ($50K GTD)
- Dec 21: $600 NLHE ($50K GTD)
- Dec 21-22: $2,200 Limit O-8 Championship ($200K GTD)
- Dec 21: $10,500 PLO
- Dec 22: $1,100 NLHE ($200K GTD)
- Dec 22: $10,500 NLHE 8-Max
- Dec 22: $600 Limit Omaha-8/Stud-8 ($50K GTD)
- Dec 22: $600 5-Card PLO ($50K GTD)
- Dec 23: $600 NLHE ($50K GTD)
The events bolded in the above list are the highest buy-ins of the series. Note that the only one with a guarantee on the prize pool is the Seniors High Roller, a tournament restricted to players aged 50 and older.
The full schedule, complete with milestone satellites, some of which have a guaranteed number of seats, is online. It is not an easy schedule to print, but it contains all of the event information, including starting stacks, starting times, and blind levels. That schedule also has a bar code to scan for access to the schedule, structure sheets, etc.
