After 11 seasons at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, the World Poker Tour World Championship has a new home on the east coast of the United States of America, namely the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
The WPT World Championship is the tour’s flagship event and one that poker players and fans of this amazing game look forward to coming around. Season 12’s World Championship runs from April 22 through to April 26, 2014 meaning there is only six months until the Borgata hosts its first WPT World Championship Main Event. Gone is the $25,000 buy-in and in comes a more affordable $15,400 buy-in event in its place. This lower buy-in coupled with the fact the Borgata-hosted WPT events are among the most popular on the poker calendar means the 2014 WPT World Championship could be one of the biggest and best in its 12-season history.
Home for three stops
The WPT now calls the Borgata home for three stops per season. One stop, the Borgata Poker Open, took place in September and saw 1,189 players create a massive prize pool of $3,805,989. Anthony Zinno defeated Vanessa Selbst heads-up to claim the $825,099 first place prize and a seat in the 2014 WPT World Championship.
The second Borgata stop, the Borgata Winter Poker Open, runs January 26-31, 2014, with the third and final New Jersey stop being the WPT World Championship.
“We’re very pleased to name Borgata — now home to four of the five biggest tournaments in WPT history — the host of the Season XII WPT World Championship. With Borgata’s well-deserved reputation for running world-class tournaments and providing unparalleled service to its players, we believe this venue is perfectly suited to host our season-culminating event. We look forward to working with the team at Borgata to bring the WPT World Championship to new heights,” said the WPT President Adam Pliska.
Fond memories
Partypoker’s very own Marvin Rettenmaier has fond memories of this event having become one of its highest profile winners at the end of Season 10. Rettenmaier bested a 152-player field to get his hands on the largest win of his career so far, the princely sum of $1,196,858.
WPT World Championship Past Winners
| Season | Event | Winner | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | WPT Championship Season 1 | Alan Goehring | $1,011,866 |
| 2 | WPT Championship Season 2 | Martin De Knijff | $2,728,356 |
| 3 | WPT Championship Season 3 | Tuan Le | $2,856,150 |
| 4 | WPT Championship Season 4 | Joe Bartholdi Jr | $$,760,165 |
| 5 | WPT Championship Season 5 | Carlos Mortensen | $3,970,415 |
| 6 | WPT Championship Season 6 | David Chiu | $3,389,140 |
| 7 | WPT Championship Season 7 | Yevgeniy Timoshenko | $2,149,960 |
| 8 | WPT Championship Season 8 | David Williams | $1,530,537 |
| 9 | WPT Championship Season 9 | Scott Seiver | $1,618,344 |
| 10 | WPT Championship Season 10 | Marvin Rettenmaier | $1,196,858 |
| 10 | WPT Championship Season 11 | David “Chino” Rheem | $1,150,279 |
The largest prize ever awarded on the WPT came from Season 5’s World Championship. On that occasion, the legendary Spaniard Carlos Mortensen scooped the gargantuan $3,970,415 winner’s prize, writing himself into the poker history books as he did so. Could the new buy-in and venue see the WPT World Championship prizes return to a similar level? Only time will tell.
Although the $15,400 buy-in is out of reach for most poker players, partypoker will run a plethora of satellites in the New Year that feed into the prestigious WPT World Championship event. Details are being finalised and as soon as qualification routes are confirmed they will be relayed to you on thee partypoker blog.
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