$3,500 WPT Tampa Championship
$2,000,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 4: 300/500 with a 500 ante
Day 1A Entries:  415

The Day 1A field has its fair share of players trying to get their name on the Mike Sexton Champions Cup again.

Beside the previously mentioned Brian Altman and Bala Patur, other WPT Champs in the field today include Frank “The Tank” Stepuchin, Jonathan Jaffe, Craig Varnell, Harrison Gimbel, James Mackey, Ryan Van Sanford, Matt Waxman, and WPT Poker Showdown winner Eric Afriat.

$3,500 WPT Tampa Championship
$2,000,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 3: 200/400 with a 400 ante
Day 1A Entries:  404

Day 1A of the Championship hit 400 entries after the first break to put nearly $1.3 million towards the $2,000,000 guaranteed prize pool, a great pace to get to that number.

Some notables we found this afternoon include WPT champ Bala Patur, Event 10 PLO runner-up Joshua Palmer, Trung Pham, Brett Bader, Vanessa Alvarez, Frank Harrington, Scott Robbins, and Jon Borenstein.

Patur is doubly notable. The recent addition to the Mike Sexton Champions Cup came to town the other day for the Championship, was unable to check into his rental, and decided to win our $1,100 NLH event since he had time to kill.

$3,500 WPT Tampa Championship
$2,000,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 3: 200/400 with a 400 ante
Day 1A Entries:  392

With the deep, slow structure, not too many big stacks emerge after two levels of play. One of them belongs to the two-time WPT final tablist D.J. Alexander with 94,600 and Jonathan Jaffe is sitting nicely with 83,200.

Janet Berg-Thornton, our Step Satellite qualifier, has 22,500 out front. That seems short but it’s still 56 big blinds, plenty to work with.

$3,500 WPT Tampa Championship
$2,000,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 3: 200/400 with a 400 ante
Day 1A Entries:  382

Keeping with traditions, the World Poker Tour crew got together in the center of the room with our team members for the “shuffle up and deal” command after the first break.

From left to right; Tournament Manager Yi Li, Director of Poker Operations Pablo Perez, WPT President/CEO Adam Pliska, WPT Executive Tour Director Matt Savage, WPT Commentator Vince Van Patten, WPT Host Tyler Nicole, and Director of Poker Marketing for Seminole Hard Rock Tony Burns.

$3,500 WPT Tampa Championship
$2,000,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 2: 200/300 with a 300 ante
Day 1A Entries:  369

The first two levels are in the books and tournament staff sent the WPT Tampa Championship players on a 15-minute break. We have 372 entries so far with more coming in every minute.

$3,500 WPT Tampa Championship
$2,000,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 2: 200/300 with a 300 ante
Day 1 Entries:  358

Florida has a lot to say about the outcome of the WPT Player of the Year races each season and we don’t see a reason why that will change this time around. The WPT Tampa Championship is the first event of their new season and it will put a new name at the top.

Brian Altman is the reigning WPT POY after winning the 2020 WPT Lucky Hearts Poker Open Championship in Hollywood, the first player to win the same WPT tournament twice, and he locked up his title at the WPT Poker Showdown Championship in April.

In other news, we are keeping track of Step Satellite winner Janet Berg-Thornton. She is sitting across the table from Altman so her day got a lot tougher.

$3,500 WPT Tampa Championship
$2,000,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 2: 200/300 with a 300 ante
Day 1 Entries:  338

With the big game in town, we have players joining the field from around the country and the rest of the world. But we have a nice group of players from right here in Tampa, trying to put their name on the Mike Sexton Champions Cup and keep the big money in town.

This series is a great way to show the poker world the talent we have in this part of the country.

$3,500 WPT Tampa Championship
$2,000,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 1: 100/200 with a 200 ante
Day 1 Entries:  300

Before the WPT main tour came to town, we hosted the WPTDeepStacks tour during our summer series. We ran four Main Events and Anthony Astarita was the first to lift the trophy, now he can make some history by winning our first WPT Tampa Championship.

WPTDeepStacks Tampa winners:

2016 – Anthony Astarita
2017 – Rex Clinkscales
2018 – Quentin Jones
2019 – Jeff Trudeau

$3,500 WPT Tampa Championship
$2,000,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 1: 100/200 with a 200 ante
Day 1 Entries:  286

Today’s entry count includes Janet Berg-Thornton and she’s trying to do something unique over the next few days; trying to spin $80 into a WPT title.

Berg-Thornton entered one of our $80 step satellites, won a seat into a WPT Tampa Championship satellite, then won a seat into the Championship itself this morning.

We’ll be keeping an eye on her trip through the big tournament.

$3,500 WPT Tampa Championship
$2,000,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 1: 100/200 with a 200 ante
Day 1 Entries:  260

Players made their way to the Event Center before tournament staff put cards in the air for our inaugural WPT Tampa Championship.

We have 260 entries at the start with many more expected today with registration open until approximately 9:15 pm.