It didn’t take long for the World Poker Tour to get back into the swing of Season XVIII in the new year. For the WPT, the season actually started in the middle of last year and runs through May or June, so they are really just picking up where they left off for the holidays.
As a reminder, the WPT’s main tour now counts these tournaments as completed and these players as new WPT champions:
--WPT Gardens Poker Festival: Roger Teska ($368,475)--WPT Legends of Poker: Aaron Van Blarcum ($474,390)--WPT Borgata Poker Open: Donald Maloney ($616,186)--WPT Maryland at Live! Casino: Nitis Udornpim ($319,415)--WPT UK at Dusk Till Dawn: Simon Brandstrom ($330,000)--WPT bestbet Bounty Scramble: Josh Adkins ($331,480)--WPT Montreal at Playground Poker: Geoffrey Hum ($380,648)--WPT Seminole Rock ‘N’ Roll Poker Open: MIlen Stefanov ($545,070)--WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic: Alex Foxen ($1,694,995)
WPT Gardens Poker Championship
The first tournament of the new year is also the first of the entire 18th season to be played for television. This means that the WPT Gardens Poker Championship played down to the final table of six competitors and stopped. More on that in a moment.
https://twitter.com/WPT/status/1213898412640231424?s=20
Action start on January 9 at the Gardens Casino in the Los Angeles area of Southern California. The first of two starting days brought in 74 players and ended with just 42 remaining. Randall Emmett was that night’s chip leader. The second starting day added another 124 entries with 68 surviving and Cole Sudeck in the lead.
Registration remained open into Day 2, and when it closed, the final numbers were as follows:
Total entries: 257 (253 last year)Total prize pool: $2,467,200 ($2,428,800 last year)Total paid players: 33Minimum payout: $18,825
Day 2 ended with just 48 players holding chips and Markus Gonsalves bagging the largest stack.
On Day 3, it was Gonsalves who eliminated Joe Serock on the money bubble. Some of the better-known players who headed to the cashier cage for at least $18,825 were David Peters, Joseph Cheong, Byron Kaverman, Cole Sudeck, Randall Emmett, Sam Soverel, David Baker, and Sorel Mizzi. With 14 players left and Chance Kornuth as the chip leader, play ended for the night.
Day 4 started with some quick eliminations, with Kornuth serving up many of them and growing his lead. After Ali Imsirovic busted in ninth place, several players doubled through Kornuth, but he kept climbing. He eliminated Sebastiaan de Jonge in eighth place. Tuan Phan ousted Qi Hu in seventh place for $86,435, but Kornuth remained the chip leader.
Play stopped with six players remaining. They will travel to Las Vegas to play their final table on a stage at the HyperX Esports Arena at the Luxor Casino on March 31 at 4pm. They are all guaranteed at least $111,795 for their efforts but playing for the $554,495 first-place prize and the WPT title. Their chip counts going to that day are as follows:
Chip leader: Chance Kornuth (2,995,000 chips)2nd place: Markus Gonsalves (2,370,000 chips)3rd place: Tuan Phan (2,070,000 chips)4th place: Jonathan Cohen (1,615,000 chips)5th place: Qing Liu (795,000 chips)6th place: Straton Wilhelm (435,000 chips)
Little more than one week into the new year, the World Poker Tour announced a new addition to the Season XVIII schedule. The Venetian will provide another March stop just after several tournaments on the main tour around California.
The remainder of the main WPT schedule for the current season is now as follows:
--January 17-22: WPT Lucky Hearts Poker Open at Seminole Hard Rock Casino in Hollywood, Florida ($3,500 buy-in, two starting days, $2 million guaranteed prize pool)--January 21-26: WPT Russia at Casino Sochi in Sochi, Russia (₽210K buy-in, five starting flights plus two online flights, ₽95.5 million prize pool guarantee)--January 26-30: WPT Borgata Winter Poker Open at Borgata Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey ($3,500 buy-in, two starting days, $3 million guaranteed)--February 18-23: WPT Germany at King’s Casino in Rozvadov, Czech Republic (€3,300 buy-in, three starting days plus two online flights, €1.5 million guaranteed)--February 21-23: WPT Fallsview Poker Classic at Fallsview Casino in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada (C$5K buy-in, single starting day)--February 29-March 4: WPT L.A. Poker Classic at Commerce Casino in Los Angeles, California ($10K buy-in, single starting day)--March 7-10: WPT Rolling Thunder at Thunder Valley Casino in Sacramento, California ($5K buy-in)--March 13-17: WPT Venetian at Venetian Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada ($5K buy-in, two starting days, $2 million guaranteed)--March 31-April 5: WPT Barcelona at Casino Barcelona in Barcelona, Spain (€3,300 buy-in, three starting days plus two online flights, €3 million guaranteed)--May 1-5: WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown at Seminole Hard Rock in Hollywood, Florida ($3,500 buy-in)--May 15-18: WPT Choctaw at Choctaw Casino in Durant, Oklahoma ($3,700 buy-in)
