It might be a bit far off in the future for some, but it looks like Las Vegas will be the place to be for tournament poker just before Christmas. The World Poker Tour has announced the schedule of events for the 2022 WPT World Championship, which will run from December 1-19. More importantly for some may be the guaranteed money that will be attached to these tournaments.
Schedule to Feature $22 Million in Guarantees
The tournament schedule will be held at the Wynn Las Vegas, which is becoming one of the more popular destinations for excellent (and well-run) tournaments. There will be 23 tournaments that will be played over the run of the festival, with the festivities kicking off on December 1 with a $600 buy-in tournament that has a guarantee of $500,000. That event will feature six starting flights that will be run between December 1-3.
The big events on the schedule will naturally have the larger guarantees. The WPT Prime Championship features a $2 million guarantee on the event (buy-in of $1000 plus $100 juice). The big event will be the WPT World Championship, a $10,000 tournament ($400 juice) that features a massive $15 million guaranteed prize pool. A “mystery bounty” event with a $1500 buy in ($100 juice) also features a $2 million prize pool, while other tournaments have guarantees ranging from $50,000 to $200,000 (the WPT Ladies Championship falls in the $200K guarantee range).
“Our goal is to develop the WPT World Championship into one of the most talked about poker events of the year,” Adam Pliska, the WPT Chief Executive Officer, stated during the announcement of the festival. “Partnering with Wynn Las Vegas has allowed us to put the player experience first and the festival schedule reflects that.”
“We are proud of the reputation Wynn Las Vegas has for running world-class events,” said Ryan Beauregard, the Executive Director of Poker Operations at Wynn Las Vegas, about the casino’s participation in this event. “In partnership with WPT, the upcoming World Championship will be no different and solidify our spot as a major poker destination.”
Long History for WPT World Championship
If you came to poker over the last few years, then you might be forgiven for not knowing that this tournament was a once a very big deal in the tournament poker world.
From the inception of the WPT, its World Championship event was a pinnacle mark of the poker season. Usually held during the run of the Bellagio’s Five Star World Poker Classic in April, the WPT World Championship was originally one of the priciest events in tournament poker with its $25,000 buy in. That inaugural championship was won by Alan Goehring, who defeated a stacked final table that included Ted Forrest, Doyle Brunson, and Phil Ivey on his way to besting runner-up Kirill Gerasimov for the title.
Over the years, the tournament was won by some of the biggest names in the poker world. Martin de Knijff, Tuan Le, Carlos Mortensen, David Chiu, David Williams, Scott Seiver, Marvin Rettenmaier, David ‘Chino’ Rheem, and Asher Conniff all took home the title of “WPT World Champion” up until Conniff’s 2017 victory. But then something…strange happened.
After 2017, the WPT put its version of the World Championship on hold, instead opting to have a “Tournament of Champions” which has changed formats over the years. Now, the WPT is bringing back their World Championship, and it is something that has been long overdue. The complete schedule for the 2022 WPT World Championship can be found at the Wynn website, and it should be a very popular tournament for some fortunate individuals to take part in!
Hello do you have an actual schedule yet with all the tournaments?… Canada? 🙏