WSOP Sets Main Event Field, WPT500 Draws Big Crowds

WSOP Main Event Field Strong

When the $10K NLHE World Championship began on Saturday, July 5, the first of three starting days delivered a fairly small number of players. There were only 771 in action, down significantly from the Day 1A number of 943 from the previous year.

That night ended with just 505 players and Martin Jacobson in the lead with 200,100 chips.

The second starting day brought in another 2,144 players, putting the total up to 2,915. The attendance on Day 1B looked promising for the WSOP, especially considering the thousands of players already signed up for the next and final day. The day’s total was also an increase from the 1,942 of the previous year.

Day 1B ended with approximately 1,300 players and Trey Luxemburger with 193,450 chips, still behind Jacobson from Day 1A.

The final day brought in thousands of players. There were 3,768 of them, to be exact, bringing the tournament total to 6,683 players. That pushed the prize pool up to $62,820,200 and would pay the top 693 finishers.

The Main Event became the fifth largest in WSOP history, surpassing last year’s total of 6,352 players by quite several hundred entries.

WPT500 at Aria Hits Guarantee Early

The World Poker Tour did something very different this summer by offering a low buy-in event at the Aria Resort & Casino in Las Vegas. It began just one day before the WSOP Main Event, and the $565 buy-in offered reentries (one per day, even if they cash or survive the day) and a guaranteed prize pool of $1 million.

There were also six Day 1 offerings for the WPT500, with the finalists hitting the money every evening. Every player left at the end of each night was guaranteed at least $1,250, which was the payout for the final six percent of the field. The minimum payout would be $750 each night for the top 10 to 12 percent of the field, with $1K going to the top seven to nine percent. The final five percent of each starting day would move on to Day 2, which would be Wednesday, July 9.

Day 1A brought in 443 players and ended with 22.

Day 1B had 366 entries and 18 players moving forward.

Day 1C added 457 entries to the field for a three-day total of 1,256 thus far. Only 22 players made it through.

The chip leader to that point was Messadek Soufiane with 1,143,000, twice as many chips as anyone else on the leaderboard.