Premiere players converge in Bellagio, Las Vegas for WPT World Championship season finale

Wednesday 6th April 2005

Poker’s finest are set to converge at Bellagio from April 18 – 24 for a shot at the World Poker Tour’s biggest payday. In the climax to a sixteen-tournament Third Season that awarded over $70m in prize money and averaged a millionaire a week, the finale winner is expected to pocket at least $3.5 million.

The tournament will boast a prize pool of at least $10 million, a potential five-fold increase over WPT’s Season One championship prize pool.

Last year’s WPT Championship awarded its winner, Martin De Knijff of Stockholm, Sweden, a staggering $2,728,356. At the time, this was the largest prize ever paid to a single-placed finisher in a televised poker tournament. This year will boast an jackpot estimated at $3.5 million and hundreds are expected to ante-up the buy-in of $25,000, which is known as one of the priciest tickets in televised poker.

Battling De Knijff, who will return to defend his title, will be such poker legends as Doyle Brunson, Daniel Negreanu (Season Three’s leading money winner) and John Juanda (one of the season’s most visible players). The field also includes rising stars who have made their mark during the WPT’s first two seasons, including Antonio ‘The Magician’ Esfandiari, Phil Laak, and WPT’s 2004 ‘Player of the Year’, Erick Lindgren.

‘You couldn’t script a more gripping drama than the one that will be played out at the WPT World Championship this year,’ says Steve Lipscomb, President and founder of WPT Enterprises, ‘The field of players has never been better, the stakes have never been higher, and the millions of fans who now follow the WPT on television every Wednesday night can’t wait to see if one of their favorites or an unknown talent will capture the crown.’

Source: OnlineCasinoNews