WPT World Championship Poised to Hit $40M Guarantee

The World Poker Tour (WPT) World Championship saw 973 players enter Day 1c on Thursday, bringing the total number of entries to 2,312. Day 1d is set to take place on Friday and is expected to attract enough players for the tournament to hit the $40 million guarantee.

PokerNews reported that the first three Day 1 events ended up attracting fewer players than expected but the Friday session is expected to make up for that. In order for that to happen, it would need approximately 1,800 more players to register.

Registration will close late Friday evening, meaning that there is a whole day of anticipation remaining. The prize pool will be announced following the conclusion of the registration period.

Several Players Collected over a Million Chips

The global tournament has been attracting tons of players and is poised to be one of the most exciting poker tournaments ever. The first few Day 1 events already saw a few professionals finish with huge stacks of chips.

Kyle Ho, Chance Kornuth and Hossein Ensan, for example, all surpassed a million chips, bagging 1.21 million, 1.13 million and 1.1 million chips respectively. In the meantime, Jeff Hakim almost reached a million, bagging 998,000 on Day 1a of the event.

In the meantime, a number of notable professionals failed to qualify for Day 2. This included Phil Hellmuth, also known as the Poker Brat. However, Hellmuth and other unlucky players will have one final shot at advancing on Day 1d this Friday.

The participation of such players is expected to further bolster the Friday numbers, allowing the tournament to hit its goals and $40 million guarantee.

Costello Won the WPT Ladies Championship

Speaking of WTP events, Lisa Costello just won the World Poker Tour’s Ladies Championship, taking home $85,297, a trophy and the title of “champ.” This is not her first win at a big event but she still described her emotion about the victory as an “incredible feeling.”

The final table saw Costello face other women’s poker powerhouses, such as Kathy Stahl, Chris Read, Aylar Lie and Ada Lang.

Costello’s victory surprised poker fans considering her long recent hiatus.