2023 WPT World Championship Ups the Ante with Record-Breaking $40M GTD

Summary:

• The second edition of the tournament will have a $40M guarantee, up from $15M in 2022
• This is the biggest-ever guarantee offered in a single live poker tournament
• December will be a huge month for poker with three major festivals running simultaneously

Building on the massive success of the inaugural series, the second edition of the World Poker Tour (WPT) World Championship will award a record-breaking $40 million in guaranteed prize pool, it’s been confirmed.

Setting a New Record

To hit the target, the tournament needs to attract at least 3,847 entries and if the performance of last year’s event is any indication, the 2023 WPT World Championship could very well smash the guarantee, and the organizers are expected to pull out all the stops to make that happen.

The WPT World Championship keeps its $10,400 buy-in and runs from December 12-21 at Wynn Las Vegas. Given the whopping $40 million guarantee attached to the tournament, organizers have scheduled a total of four Day 1 flights, with re-entry also allowed, to accommodate as many players as possible.

Players sit down with a 100,000-chip stack played to 60-minute levels on Day 1, and then 90-minute levels for the rest of the tournament through to the heads-up battle during which the finalists play to 45-minute levels.

Canada’s Eliot Hudon went down in history as the first winner of the WPT World Championship when he topped a 2,960-entry field during the inaugural event in December last year. That huge victory came with an astonishing $4.1 million payout and allowed Hudon to join the prestigious WPT Champions Club.

Battle of Poker Festivals In December

The $10,400 WPT World Championship runs as part of a larger series of the same name which kicks off at Wynn Las Vegas on November 29. The series will go head to head with other major festivals scheduled across the globe, including the first-ever World Series of Poker (WSOP) Paradise in the Bahamas< (December 3-15), and the PokerStars-sponsored European Poker Tour (EPT) Prague (December 6-17).

The WPT World Championship series is comprised of more than two dozen events, with buy-ins starting at $600. The highest buy-in event on the schedule is the WPT Big One for One Drop which costs $1,000,000 to enter. Originally taking place as part of the WSOP, the popular Big One for One Drop returns this year with WPT as its new partner.

Other key events to watch out for in the upcoming series this December are the following: $1,600 buy-in, $2M GTD Mystery Bounty No-Limit Hold’em (December 4-7), $1,100 buy-in and the $5M GTD WPT Prime Championship (December 7-12).