The World Poker Tour has been living up to its name so far in 2024, as there have been some big events taking place all over the globe. The most recent tournament was the WPT Prime Gold Coast Championship and it took place at The Star Gold Coast Casino in Australia.
This was a record-setting event for poker tournaments down in Australia as there was 1,395 players that signed up to participant in this big event. Those players were all broken down into three starting flights, and the cost to buy-in was AU$2,000, and it created a prize pool of more than $1.6 million US Dollars.
Australia is still relatively new to the live poker scene, but the turnout for this event shows that the sport is alive and well. Even though this was a loaded field, it didn’t take long for the players to get eliminated.
The top 175 players were set to get paid out of the massive prize pool, but a three-way tie for that spot forced the tournament to pay 177 total players. Each of the nine players that advanced to the final table were able to take home at least $40,140 AUD.
Schollhorn Comes Up Clutch
While a number of players were able to cash in throughout this event, Lorenz Schollhorn came up with the big win in Australia. Schollhorn won over $401,000 AUD by taking home the title, and he put together a big run at the final table.
Schollhorn actually didn’t take the chip lead until only five players remained in the field, and it was a chip lead that he would never relinquish. Andres Vasquez did what he could to keep the pressure on Schollhorn, but he ended up in second place with $276,615 AUD.
There were just nine players at the final table, and it was Martin Ward that was the first to bow out. Some of the eliminations happened quickly at the final table, and it was really the top-five that brought most of the competition.
Travis Endersby was a casualty of Schollhorn near the end of the event as he finished in third place with $198,120.
A Look at Future Tournaments
For fans that didn’t want to travel down to Australia to take part in this event, there are going to be plenty of other chances coming soon as well. The next stop on the WPT Tour will take place in Montreal from May 12-May 21, and there is also an event coming to Vietnam at the end of the month.
Live poker players in the other parts of the world are also going to get an opportunity to play in some of these events as other continents are going to visited. One nice thing about the WPT Tour Series is that players can actually win their way into the big tournaments by competing online.
There will be some other tournaments that are much more established that will draw more competitors than what was seen in Australia.
