After what has been an exciting Season XIII roster of tournaments, the World Poker Tour is looking to cap off their season with one more bit of excitement for its fans. Beginning this afternoon, the WPT is in Atlantic City, NJ, for the traditional finale of each season, the WPT World Championship.
From their inception back in 2002, the WPT has always crowned off their season with the highest buy in tournament of their year. Back when it first began (the first WPT World Championship was held in 2003), the tournament was a massive $25,000 buy-in event, something that was unheard of at the time in the tournament poker world. It would prove to be hugely successful, however, drawing out the crème of the poker world on a high stakes battlefield for the enjoyment of poker fans.
In that first ever WPT World Championship, such players as Ted Forrest, Doyle Brunson and Phil Ivey would come through the 111-player field to take seats at the final table. It was two relative unknowns (to casual poker fans), Kirill Gerasimov and Alan Goehring, who would steal the show, however, as they battled it out to heads up play. In the end, it was Goehring who emerged as the champion, taking down the first-ever million dollar payday ($1,011,886, to be exact) on the WPT.
Since then, the WPT World Championship has only grown in prestige. 2004 saw the tournament more than triple its field (343 players) as Martin deKnijff bested Hasan Habib and Matt Matros to take home the title. Habib would return to the final table in 2005 (the only time a player has been to back-to-back final tables at the WPT World Championship), but he would fall short in third place to Paul Maxfield and eventual champion Tuan Le.
The WPT World Championship saw its greatest years over its next two events. In 2006, 605 players stepped up for the event, building a prize pool of over $14.6 million. Joe Bartholdi would take the then-largest ever payday on the WPT, $3,760,165, in defeating Davidson Matthew and Roland de Wolfe to capture the crown. Despite the difficulties of the UIGEA taking effect in late 2006, the 2007 WPT World Championship saw its largest field ever (639 players), its largest prize pool ever ($15,495,750) and its largest payday ever ($3,970,415), which went to former World Series of Poker Championship Event winner Carlos Mortensen after he defeated Kirk Morrison heads-up.
Following that glowing 2007, however, the numbers began to fall for the WPT’s pinnacle event. 2008 saw a respectable 545 players take the starter’s gun (and David Chiu defeat Gus Hansen for the title), but 2009 saw the numbers fall to 338 runners as Yevgeniy Timoshenko won the championship. It would get worse in 2010 as 195 players came to the Bellagio in Las Vegas for the festivities, but the final table (arguably the best in WPT World Championship history) would make up for the low numbers. Billy Baxter, David Benyamine, Shawn Buchanan and Eric Baldwin would all come up short in stopping David Williams from winning the world title.
After a slight rebound in 2011 (220 players, with Scott Seiver knocking off Farzad Bonyadi and Galen Hall to become WPT World Champion), the WPT World Championship hit its lowest levels yet. 152 players came out for the 2012 version of the tournament (with Marvin Rettenmaier besting Philippe Ktorza for the honors) and, in 2013, a paltry 146 entrants would take to the felt (with David ‘Chino’ Rheem defeating Erick Lindgren heads-up). The powers that be in the WPT offices knew something needed to be done and, in what was a stunning move, made that decision decisively for last year’s tournament.
With the advent of online gaming in New Jersey, WPT officials (the WPT is owned by party.bwin, who are active in the New Jersey online gaming scene) decided to move the tournament away from its traditional home of the Bellagio to the Borgata in Atlantic City, potentially to be able to allow for online satellites to be run in the United States off the PartyBorgata.com online poker site. In addition to the change in venue, the WPT dropped the buy-in of the tournament from $25,000 to $15,000. The tournament showed some signs of life with the changes as 328 players took part in last year’s event, with Keven Stammen taking home the championship after eliminating Byron Kaverman heads-up.
Stammen is expected back in New Jersey this weekend to defend his title and a host of challengers will await him. Over Twitter such players as poker’s all-time leading money winner Daniel Negreanu, Jason Mercier, Scott Clements and former World Champion Greg Merson have stated they will be at the tables as they try to wrest the WPT World Championship out of Stammen’s hands. In contrast to recent tournament waves, the WPT World Championship will be a single Day One event with no reentry, kind of a throwback to the way tournaments “used to be” (late registration will last until Sunday, however). The newest player who can call themselves the WPT World Champion will be crowned on Wednesday to wrap up the Season XIII for the WPT.
