The World Poker Tour has postponed several live events, but there has been plenty of tour action online. Partypoker hosted the first WPT Online Series in May and paid out a gigantic $52 million.
The 94-event series smashed the original $30 million guarantee. Players competed in tour-branded events like WPT500, WPTDeepStacks, and the overall championship. All of three major events beat original guarantees.
“I am delighted with the support that we received from players for WPT Online, with accumulated prize pools far exceeding expectations,” partypoker managing director Tom Waters said in a news release. “This is testament to both the popularity and strength of the WPT brand and also the schedule that the team put together.”
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Massive numbers and a WPT championship awarded
The series becomes just the latest international online poker series producing huge numbers. Every operator has been reporting massive fields and guarantees being beaten by a wide margin.
In the $3,200 WPT Online Championship, the guarantee of $5 million ballooned to $6.4 million. Sweden’s Christian Jeppsson led going into the final table and edged out Russia’s Viktor Ustimov for the title.
Jeppsson took home $923,785 and added his name to the WPT Champions Cup.
The WPTDeepStacks came with a guarantee of $3 million that swelled to $3.6 million. The United Kingdom’s Jareth East took the title and $557,658 for the biggest win of his career.
Another UK-based player also topped the $3 million guaranteed WPT500. Fabio Sperling was in front in a four-handed chop with remaining players winning between $187,289 and $281,125.
Already with a nice resumé of partypoker LIVE titles, Canada’s Sam Greenwood won a high roller tournament for $257,250. He previously won the 2017 Caribbean Poker Main Event and 2018 Grand Final Super High Roller for $1.8 million.
Other notables notch partypoker WPT titles
The WPT Online Series produced even more champions beyond the signature events. Charlie Carrel ($600,250), Elio Fox ($565,500), and Dan Smith ($555,503) all won super high roller events.
“We are thrilled and grateful for the players’ response during the inaugural series,” WPT Europe Vice President Hermance Blum said.
“We wanted WPT Online to deliver an authentic poker experience, with limited re-entries and entry days into the tournaments and the huge prize pools highlight the popularity of the structures and formats of the series. ”
Along with Ustimov, David Ivers, Alexandr Trofimov, and Niklas Astedt all won two events each. Players have another online opportunity for some WPT hardware this summer.
The WPT World Online Championships will be held July 1 to Aug. 9 with 15 championship events. The $10,300 buy-in Season XVIII WPT World Championship Online highlights the action on Aug. 1-8.
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