World Poker Tour Dominated the Poker World in the First Six Months of 2024
5 minutes
Last Updated: June 27, 2024
We are only six months into 2024 and the World Poker Tour (WPT) has already created more action that many poker festivals do in their entire history.
Starting in the early days of January with the online WPT Global Winter Festival, and traveling across continents, WPT has crowned dozens of champions and given away tens of millions of dollars in prize money in the first half of the year alone.
With the last event of the first half of the year behind us, we take a look back at some of the WPT highlights of 2024 along with a quick glance at what’s yet to come.
WPT Kicks Off 2024 with an Online Festival
The World Poker Tour is one of the biggest live poker tours in the world, but that did not prevent them from starting off the new year with a massive online poker festival over at WPT Global.
Starting just days after the New Year’s Eve, the WPT Global Winter Festival allowed players from all over the world to join the fun without having to travel in the harsh winter conditions.
Instead, the operator created a top-notch WPT festival online, hosting both a WPT Prime and a WPT Main Tour Championship during the first 15 days of the year.
As expected, WPT Global gave away plenty of entries for both events via a variety of satellite tournaments, which created substantial attendance despite the hefty buy-ins.
In the end, it was Nicholas Teeuwen from Canada who took down the WPT Prime Championship for $100,285, while Sweden’s Sven Joakim Andersson took down the Main Tour Championship for $144,221.
They were joined by hundreds of others who sought their first WPT cashes of the year in the new online format, which is likely to become more and more available in the years to follow.
WPT Goes Global in the Early Months
The early months of the year were a busy time for the WPT staff and ambassadors who travelled the world throwing festivals across multiple continents.
The WPT Cambodia Championship at the NagaWorld Integrated Resorts in Phnom Penh was the first live event of the year, and it attracted a massive field of 760 players who all paid $3,500 to play, leading to champion Konstantin Held winning over $361,000 and his first WPT trophy.
Action then turned to Europe, as the months of February and March saw the popular WPT Prime Tour visit Aix-en-Provance and Amsterdam, crowning new Prime champions in Yakiv Syzhgahnov and Rutger Hennen, with Amsterdam in particular drawing in quite a crowd.
March saw the first WPT event of the year on American soil play out at the Thunder Valley Casino Resort, as the popular stop brought together 458 players and saw Casey Sandretto become a WPT champion and $246,600 richer.
The Tour moved to Korea for the final days of March, as the Jeju Shinhawa World hosted a series of high roller events in the lead up to the WPT Korea Championship where Mate Hanusi won over $322,000 after beating a field of 1,065 players.
All Aboard the WPT Voyage
Probably the most exciting WPT event of the first half of 2024 was the WPT Voyage, which set sail on April 1 and saw hundreds of poker players and fans board a Virgin Voyages vessel and tour the Caribbean for a week.
WPT Voyage attracted poker players of all caliber, and WPT Ambassadors like Brad Owen and Ethan “Rampage” Yau hosted special events on board and made the experience a memorable one for everyone who attended.
Along with the poker action, WPT Voyage offered opportunities to mingle, party, and play sports with other poker players and like-minded people, making it an experience of a lifetime for all.
The Voyage hosted a WPT Prime Championship which got nearly a thousand entries at the $1,100 entry point and saw Gregory de Faria take home the title and $155,400 in prize money.
Following that, the Main Tour Championship played out on board, with 293 players ponying up the heftier $3,500 buyin and Aram Oganyan walking away the champ with $214,245 in his pocket.
The champions and hundreds of other players will have a story to tell people for years to come, as WPT Voyage truly is an experience that every poker player should indulge in at least once in their lifetime.
The Tour Travels the World and Returns to Montreal
WPT Voyage was a fun experience, but those involved took no breaks after it, as the next WPT festival started in Slovakia just days after the Voyage set sail.
WPT Prime Slovakia at Card Casino Bratislava was one of the biggest events of the year for the venue, attracting 732 players and making the champion Fabian Gumz $125,000 richer.
The Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Florida and The Star Gold Coast in Australia were the next venues, as the two played out simultaneously and allowed players from different parts of the globe to play a WPT event in their backyards.
The popular Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown was the biggest WPT event of the year so far, bringing together a massive field of 1,869 that culminated in Josh Reichard walking away with the $839,300 first-place prize.
Over in Australia, it was Lorenz Schollhorn who bested a slightly smaller field of 1,395 and took home $257,729, a huge accomplishment in its own right.
WPT Osaka and Choctaw events came next, as both events both events gave players the full WPT experience and James Mackay walked away the champion in Choctaw with a $361,600 first-place prize.
The month of May was marked by the return of WPT to Montreal, one of the stops that used to be an integral part of the yearly WPT schedule.
The WPT Montreal festival hosted a huge tournament schedule that included a WPT500 event, a WPT Prime Championship, and a WPT Main Tour Championship, making it a true treat for all Canadian poker fans.
David Dongwoo Ko eventually walked away the champion with a $319,217 first-place prize, while plenty of others tasted success in the big return of WPT to Canada.
WPT Action Continues in 2024
The WPT events in Montreal were followed by another online series at WPT Global, the WPT Global Spring Festival, and the WPT Prime Sanremo Championship in one of the most beautiful Italian cities.
Italian Priamo Carta won it all in Sanremo, taking home $135,317 at the last European WPT stop in the first half of 2024.
The Tour took a short break from major international festivals in recent weeks but is now back in Las Vegas, as the three WPT Alpha8 Trifecta events are underway.
The first $25k Alpha8 Trifecta high roller ended with Brock Wilson besting a stacked field and final table to take down the title and $571,400 in prize money, making it the biggest accomplishment of his poker career.
WPT Alpha8 Trifecta will continue with two more similar events in July, and the Tour will return to its usual continent-hopping soon after, with events in Cambodia, Taiwan, and Cyprus all scheduled for this summer.
