10,512 players started the 2023 WPT Prime Championship. That's way more than anyone at the WPT expected.
With 5,430 runners, last year’s Prime Championship was big. Stephen Song won that for a $712,650 payday. Not bad for a $1,100 buy-in. This year’s Prime is nearly twice as big. The winner will get $1,386,280 (including a seat at next year's World Championship). And it’s going to be one of the following nine players:
Seat 1: Calvin Anderson - 61,200,000 (61bb)
Seat 2: Valeriy Pak - 60,200,000 (60bb)
Seat 3: Yuebin Guo - 32,600,000 (33bb)
Seat 4: Aaron Pinson - 45,900,000 (46bb)
Seat 5: Tri Dao - 16,500,000 (17bb)
Seat 6: Bob Buckenmayer - 46,600,000 (47bb)
Seat 7: Mukul Pahuja - 17,900,000 (18bb)
Seat 8: Jon Glendinning - 72,600,000 (73 bb)
Seat 9: Jay Lu - 67,900,000 (68 bb)
They came through a grueling Day 3 that started with 128 players all guaranteed $6,060.
The next player out will get $135,850. The winner will smash seven figures.
Connor Drinan (122nd), Andrew Moreno (118th) and Frankie Cucchiara (52nd) all fell short. And, as action heated up on the live stream, one name started to dominate.
Calvin Anderson is no poker slouch. He has $3,569,809 in winnings, but his biggest score is $324,597. He’s got to outlast four more players to beat that. He led the way for a long time on Tuesday before settling for the third-biggest bag.
Chip leader Jon Glendinning has only got to outlast another two players to earn more from this event than his entire career earnings of $192,706.
WPT Prime goes into extra time
The plan for Day 3 was to play down to the final TV table of six. That didn't happen. As it was, they played until almost three in the morning before the final elimination of the day – and it was one that us a bit sad.
Steven Jones had been entertaining us with his antics on Day 3 and he was the player to drop.
This was Jones with around 30 players left:
In the end, he got his last chips in with J-T on the button and was called by Glendinning in the small blind with K-J. The flop came A-9-4-J-3 and despite picking up a flopped flush draw, Jones couldn't find salvation on the turn or river.
The nine remaining players bagged up to resume play at 2pm on Wednesday.
The final six after today's extra Day 4 will get time to truly appreciate what, for the majority, will be the biggest final table of their lives.
They will resume to play down to a winner on December 19, followed by the final table from the $1 million Big One for One Drop (December 20) and the WPT World Championship (December 20).
You can follow live updates as nine play down to six on Wednesday on the WPT site, starting at 2pm PT on Wednesday.
