Song wins WPT Prime Championship at Wynn Las Vegas
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Gaming News
20 December 2022
(PRESS RELEASE) -- Stephen Song outlasted a field of 5,430 entrants to be crowned Champion at the inaugural WPT Prime Championship at Wynn Las Vegas yesterday, claiming the grand prize of $712,650.“Honestly, it’s incredible,” said Song. “There were so many points in this tournament where I was under 10 bigs from Day 2 until the end of the tournament. You have to run insane to win a 5,400-person field, there’s no getting around that. Just super blessed to have my friends and family here.”
The $1,100 buy-in tournament more than doubled the $2 million dollar guarantee, building a total prize pool of $5,267,100, and paid out the top 677 finishers.
“The overwhelming turnout allowed the Prime Championship to set the tone for what turned out to be an electrifying festival,” said WPT CEO Adam Pliska. “Congratulations to Stephen for capping off yet another amazing story in our 20th anniversary season.”The final table, featuring the top six finishers, was filmed for television at Wynn Las Vegas and will air in early 2023 on Bally Sports. Lara Eisenberg was the runner-up, earning $481,500, Young Eum placed third for $354,000, Alon Messica placed fourth for $265,000, Albert Nguyen placed fifth for $200,000, and rounding out the final table was Giorgii Skhulukhiia who placed sixth for $153,000.Other notable players to cash were Tom Middleton (11thplace), Kathy Liebert (13th place), and WPT Champions Jared Jaffee (17th place) and Taylor Black (18th place).Along with the first-place cash prize, Song also received a Rockstar room package from Virgin Voyages ($8,000 value) for his World Poker Tour success. The other five final players received a Sea Terrace room package ($2,400 value).The WPT Prime Championship had a record-breaking turnout with 5,430 entrants, which surpassed the previous Prime record by 4,380 entries. The prize pool of $5,267,100 also blew the previous Prime record out of the water, tallying a prize pool larger than all 2022 Prime events combined.The WPT Prime Championship served as an exclamation point for the 2022 WPT Prime season. Launched in May, WPT Prime stopped in a total of six different countries including Vietnam, Australia, Cambodia, Spain, Taiwan and the United States.The success of the Prime Championship has generated great anticipation and excitement for WPT Prime 2023, which has already announced stops in Paris, Australia, Cambodia, Amsterdam, Slovakia, Vietnam and Italy.
