The eleventh season of the World Poker Tour has come down to its final tournament, the WPT Championship at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, which begins on Saturday with a tremendous amount of drama in store.
This year’s $25,000 tournament features a few wrinkles thrown in that should make for an intriguing event. Starting with 100K in tournament chips, players will be allowed late entry within the first eight levels of play which, according to the WPT structure, should allow for players to enter up to 5PM on Day Two. For those that find a bit of misfortune and bust out before those eight levels are completed, there will be a rebuy option available that some of the more deep pocketed pros will more than likely take advantage of.
The WPT Championship will also be the determining factor when it comes to the battle for the WPT Player of the Year award. The final table will award 1400 points to the eventual champion (with 1200 to second, 1100 to third, 1000 to fourth, 900 to fifth and 800 to sixth), meaning that there are fourteen players that are in contention for the POY crown. The POY fight started off as a runaway but, as of late, has tightened up considerably.
Defending WPT Grand Prix de Paris champion Matt Salsberg added two more final tables and three other cashes to his outstanding season on the WPT to sit atop the leaderboard coming into the WPT Championship with 2575 points. Late in the season, however, Paul Volpe used two final tables during the California swing of the WPT schedule (the L. A. Poker Classic and the Bay 101 Shooting Star) to push his points total to 2400, well within shot of overtaking Salsberg should Volpe finish deep in the tournament and Salsberg doesn’t. There are other contenders that bear watching among the fourteen men vying for the crown.
L. A. Poker Classic champion Paul Klann sits in third place on the POY leaderboard, holding 1850 points and needing a sixth place finish to overtake Salsberg. Doyle Brunson World Poker Classic champion Ravi Raghavan (1600 points) needs to finish in at least fourth place to head to the top of the ladder, while Antonio Esfandiari, Ben Hamnett and defending WPT Championship winner Marvin Rettenmaier need to finish third or better.
WeiKai Chang needs to finish in second place to take the WPT POY, while Ben Tarzia, Jonathan Roy, Noah Schwartz, Andy Hwang, Jeff Madsen, Amir Babakhani, James Anderson, Joe Nguyen, Josh Hale, Kevin Eyster, Marcin Wydrowski and Shawn Buchanan all need to win the tournament to pass Salsberg (and this is taking into account that Salsberg doesn’t earn any points during the WPT Championship).
While there will be a great deal of attention on the WPT Championship, another event that has become a staple of the final stop of the year for the circuit will also be contested. For those that have found themselves out of the WPT Championship, the WPT Super High Roller will take place on Tuesday. The whopping $100,000 buy in tournament is stocked with strong players (and even stronger bankrolls) as they contest what, over the course of two years, has become quite a contentious battle for a huge amount of cash (Tom Marchese won the event in 2012, banking $1.3 million for the victory).
Last year’s WPT Championship, while it lacked in numbers, more than made up for it with a quality final table. 152 players would come to the felt last year, with Trevor Pope, recently crowned European Poker Tour Grand Final champion Steve O’Dwyer and former WPT champions Nick Schulman and Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi making the final table. In the end, Rettenmaier would vanquish France’s Philippe Ktorza to take the first of what would eventually be back-to-back titles for him on the WPT.
Both the Super High Roller and the WPT Championship will be a part of the Season XI television broadcast schedule and there should be plenty for the cameras to capture! It all starts at noon (Pacific Time) on Saturday as the WPT looks to wrap up its Season XI schedule with its usual style.