The World Poker Tour’s worldwide Prime Championship series’ good year continues with a record-breaking field in Taiwan.
Jereld Sam is the WPT Prime Taiwan champion. He outlasted 1,666 entries to win TWD 8,065,000, which is about $250,000. The prize included entry into the 2024 $10,000 WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas in December.
The buy-in was around $1,100, which is usually what the WPT Prime buy-in are for the brand’s mid-level events. The field edged out the 1,644-entry benchmark set by the WPT Prime Liechtenstein Championship last year.
The WPT Prime Taiwan Championship event ran from August 15-19 at the Asia Poker Arena in Taipei City. The field was built by three starting flights who generated a prize pool of TWD 51,054,436 ($1.6 million). The top 208 were paid.
WPT Prime events are proving to be popular no matter where they touch down, whether that’s in Italy, Canada, France or any of the other countries that put “world” into World Poker Tour. Often shadowed by the big buy-in championship events, WPT Prime events in 2024 continue to bring in large fields.
Prime bringing them in
The modest buy-ins and WPT brand name are surely fueling the large fields. ClubWPT.com, the Tour’s subscription-based online poker room, also has a hand in inflating the fields through its many qualifiers that feed the tournaments. And like WPT Prime Taiwan, several of the events broke the thousand-player entry barrier, which always puts a buzz in the air and hop in the steps of tourney organizers.
March’s €1,100 WPT Prime Amsterdam Championship attracted 1,340 entrants who built a prize pool of €1,289,400. This was accomplished through four starting flights, including a turbo edition.
The WPT Prime Voyage Championship, which took place on a cruise ship touring the Bahamas, nearly broke that number with 968 $1,100 entries a month later.
Entries slightly dipped to 732 in the €1,100 WPT Prime Slovakia Championship, but massively rebounded at the AUD $1,100 WPT Prime Gold Coast Championship in Australia which brought in 1,395 entrants in the AUD $2,000 contest. Both also took place in April.
The WPT Prime Montreal Championship also broke the thousand-entry mark with 1,291 in May. The San Remo version brought in 781 before the WPT broke its Prime entry record in Taiwan.
The next WPT Prime festival is already underway at Chamada Prestige Hotel Spa in Cyprus. WPT Prime Cyprus is headlined by a $1,100 championship event that runs Aug 22-26.
Right after Cyprus, the WPT returns to Liechtenstein where officials will hope to re-establish and reclaim a new Prime entry record. The series is a part of the nine remaining WPT Prime events scheduled for this year. Click here for other upcoming WPT events or check out the full schedule.
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