WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas Day 1d Update

The fourth and final starting day of the 2023 WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas has now been and gone and there’s no late registration available into day 2. The 1,523 entries represent a WPT single-day record field for a $10,000 tournament, however, this fell short of the number required to meet the unprecedented $40m guarantee on the event. The 571 players who made it through are all still in with a shot of claiming the $5,678,000 first prize. However, there’s still a very long way to go, as there are six days of play remaining until the new champion will lay his or her claim to have their name added to the Mike Sexton Cup.

While this overlay might be seen as a disappointment, who is actually going to be upset by this? Not the players, they all got a nice Christmas present. WPT CEO Adam Plisko is also not phased by the outcome, declaring soon after the end of late registration that he sees the overlay as in investment in the future of the event, the tour and poker in general. 

It does indeed represent significant year-on-year growth, as last year’s event mustered a prize pool of $29m and the prize money that will be fought for on the final table is significantly up on last year, with the last six standing (technically sitting) securing seven figure payouts. There are still 1,375 players left with a chance of securing a payout, of which 480 will achieve at least a minimum cash of $18,700.

This what they're playing for:

The day 1d overnight chip leader is Mateus Carrion, who bagged a 982,000 stack to take into day 2. Tied for second place are Teo Leibowitz and David Uvaydov on 806,000 each. Alex Jauregui on 791,000 and Anatoly Filatov on 773,000 complete the top five. 

UK pro and recent GUKPT Luton winner Stuart Rutter completed the day in 13th position with 681,000. Former WSOP main event champion Huck Seed ended the day in 18th place with a devilish 666,000 stack to his name. Former WPT Chairman and Rainforest Cafe CEO Lyle Berman (pictured above with Adam Plisko) also made it through to day two with an above average 498,000 chips. 

Many well known players fell by the wayside in their attempts to progress further in the tournament, several of them firing bullets on multiple starting days. These included Phil Ivey and Phil Hellmuth, both of whom registered late on in the day. Former WSOP main event winners Ryan Reiss, Scott Blumstein and Qui Nguyen were other day 1d casualties. 

Likeable poker pedant Allen Kessler made it through, securing his day two berth with just 61,000 chips, as did another WSOP main event winner Joe McKeehan on only 75,000.

It was a good day for the two Irish Unibet sponsored players David Lappin on 529,000 and Dara O’Kearney on 467,000. The Chip Race podcast presenters combined chip total fell just short of the 1m mark and they will both be looking to progress deeper in the tournament, which has become one of their firm favourite events on the annual poker calendar.

Chip Counts of the top five players and other notable survivors from day 1d

Day 2 resumes at 12pm local time, with five levels being played today, but on an extended 90 minute clock compared with the 60 min levels that were played on day 1. The prize money stage of the tournament wont be reached today, but should kick-in on day 3.