Record-Setting $3.9 Million Payout to Winner of World Poker Tour Championship

by Bodog Beat News Ticker  |  April 23rd, 2007

Josh Arieh

Bodog pro Josh Arieh is one of several poker pros going into Day2 at the WPT.

 

The World Poker Tour World Championship got underway this weekend at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, and with 639 entrants paying the steep $25,000 buy-in, a record cash purse of $15,495,750 has been set aside with an amazing $3,970,415 going to the first place finisher and $2,011,135 to second. Even third place will walk away an instant millionaire when the televised tournament ends on April 27. With its record-setting prize pool, the WPT World Championship has now become the richest poker tournament outside of the World Series of Poker Main Event.

After two flights of Day 1, the unknown amateur poker player who first made a name for herself last week by winning the $3,000 buy-in event at the Bellagio Five-Star is becoming a little more familiar. Anna Wroblewski plowed through the Day 1a field on Saturday to become the first player to break the 100k chip mark and then the 200k mark. The pint-sized player finished the day as the chipleader stacked at 211,325.

Not giving her much time to rest on her laurels, Day 1b on Sunday saw several poker pros with much more name recognition take a run at Wroblewski's lead, with Sammy Farha coming the closest by finishing the day stacked at 210,700.

Heading into Day 2 today, the red and black of Team Bodog is still well represented. After his deep run at the European Poker Tour, Bodog's Josh Arieh is gunning for stateside success and will start the second day stacked at 93,325, comfortably above the average stack of 66,701. Alan "BodogAri" Engel, who recently won an event at the 2007 WSOP Circuit Tournament-Caesars Atlantic City, is also stacked above average at 85,475 while Team Bodog's David Williams is still in the hunt with more than enough chips (36,025) to make a run on Day 2.

In all, 479 players survived their respective Day 1 flights including noted pros Phil Ivey, Daniel Negreanu, JC Tran, Joe Hachem, Joe Sebok, Gavin Smith, Phil Hellmuth, Hoyt Corkins, Carlos Mortensen and Doyle Brunson. Play resumes today at 12 noon EST.