The first ever WPT Online Series, hosted by partypoker, has come to an end, having paid out a gigantic $52,956,050 in prizes.
A total of 94 events were held across 29 days, with 111,183 entries. The three flagship events of the festival – the WPT500, WPTDeepStacks and WPT Online Championship – all comfortably beat their guarantees.
In the $3,200 buy-in WPT Online Championship, which had a guarantee of $5,000,000, it was the chip leader going into the final table who came out on top, as Sweden’s Christian Jeppsson edged out Russia’s Viktor Ustimov heads-up to win $923,785.
The UK’s Jareth East banked the largest victory of his career so far in the WPTDeepStacks, an event which had a guarantee of $3,000,000. There was a difference of more than $164,000 between first and second place, but East managed to beat Jon Van Fleet heads up and take $557,658.
It was another UK-based player who placed first in the $2,000,000 guaranteed WPT500, as Fabio Sperling was in front when the tournament ended in a four-handed chop that meant each of the remaining players won between $187,289 and $281,125. Sperling agreed a deal with Walter Treccarich, Markus Prinz and Christopher Putz to leave himself as tournament winner.
Sam Greenwood managed to win a High Roller tournament for $257,250, adding to his several partypoker LIVE titles, including the 2017 Caribbean Poker Main Event and the Super High Roller at the €50,000 buy-in 2018 Grand Final.
Other notable mentions were Charlie Carrel, Elio Fox and Dan Smith’s victories in Super High Roller events for $600,250, $565,500 and $555,503 respectively. Ustimov, David Ivers, Alexandr Trofimov and former online world number one Niklas Astedt each won two events.
Hermance Blum, WPT VP Europe, said: “We are thrilled and grateful for the players’ response during the inaugural series. WPT with partypoker will continue our efforts to bring the best player experience with the exciting WPT World Online Championships this summer, as well as keeping our fans entertained with original content.”
partypoker Managing Director, Tom Waters, said: “I am delighted with the support that we received from players for WPT Online, with accumulated prize pools far exceeding expectations. This is testament to both the popularity and strength of the WPT brand and also the schedule that the team put together.
“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. The events were full of many of the world’s best poker players as well as an abundance of players who managed to win their seats into potentially life-changing tournaments. It was a pleasure working with an excellent WPT team who share our vision for poker and I’m looking forward to working with them again for future online series.”
