top corner

Matt Wantman Wins Aria Summer Championship – WPT Tournament of Champions Begins

Sunday will be a big day for action in Las Vegas at the World Series of Poker but it is not the only thing going on in the poker world. Today we will take a quick look at some of the other stories happening around the world of poker, including an announcement of the largest televised poker tournament buy-in in history.

Triton Poker to Offer Largest Buy-in In Televised Poker History

Most are aware of the Big One for One Drop, the $1 million buy-in event that’s featured every two years at the World Series of Poker. That event is about to be trumped at the upcoming Triton Poker Super High Roller Series London.

In an announcement on Friday, Triton Poker has announced a charity tournament on August 1 that will feature a £1 million buy-in, equivalent to $1.26 million USD. The event will be held from August 1 through 3rd and will beat the record set by the Monte Carlo One Drop Extravaganza in 2016. That event featured a $1.1 million buy-in.

Details on the tournament are scant at this point but Triton Poker organizers promise more details in the coming weeks.

Matthew Wantman Wins ARIA Summer Championship

While everyone is focused on the World Series of Poker, there are other events going on and one that recently concluded was the WPT ARIA Summer Championship. The event concluded on Friday and had a stacked final table that included Ryan Laplante, Kevin Eyster, Art Papazyan, Matthew Wantman, and Igor Kurganov.

In the end, it was Wantman facing Kurganov for the title. Wantman ultimately walked away with the title and $443,475 in prize money. He also became one of the qualifiers for the WPT Tournament of Champions that kicked off on Saturday.

WPT Tournament of Champions Draws 76 Players

As we just mentioned, the WPT Tournament of Champions kicked off this weekend. The event was hosted by Baccarat Crystal and played at the ARIA in Las Vegas. Unlike many tournaments in the modern era, this event was a freezeout with a short registration period since only WPT Champions can enter.

The event will pay ten players with the final four players receiving a six-figure payday. The top prize will be $440,35 along with an automatic entry into next season’s Tournament of Champions.

By the end of the day, just 44 players remained with Patrick Serda leading. Other extremely notable players still in the hunt include Mike Watson, Tony Dunst, Ole Schemion, Hoyt Corkins, Dominik Nitsche, Noah Schwartz, Nick Schulman, and Will Failla.

Big Day at the WSOP

You almost can’t ignore the Rio as there is one event that will play to a conclusion and one to a final table on Sunday. The first is the $1,500 Omaha Hi-Lo Event and Derek McMaster is leading the final seven players in today’s final table action. Notables at the final table include Ben Yu, John Esposito, and Tom McCormack. The top prize for this event is $228,228 along with the WSOP gold bracelet.

Meanwhile, the 50th Annual High Roller Event will play to the final table of six today. Ben Heath is the current chip leader with 5.25 million. Dmitry Yurasov is right behind with 4.8 million. Other notables in the final 12 are Nick Petrangelo, Chance Kornuth, Elio Fox, Manig Loeser, Andrew Lichtenberger, David Einhorn, Sam Soverel, and Poker Central founder Cary Katz.

Meanwhile, the $500 BIG 50 Event has played throughout the weekend and will eclipse the 2015 Colossus Event for the largest field in WSOP history. Also, the $2,500 Mixed Triple Draw Event will kick off Day 2 action on Sunday with 112 players remaining out of 296. Jake Schwartz, Julien Martini, John Racener and Brandon Shack-Harris are among the chip leaders.

bottom corner