WPT Global Welcomes the Poker World to Las Vegas

The WPT World Championship Series at Wynn Las Vegas is producing remarkable numbers for each event, with millions of dollars in the prize pools, and players from around the world in attendance.

WPT Global hosted Sunday night's WPT World Championship player's party at Area 15, hundreds of players, WPT staff and ambassadors and more in attendance.

Adam Pliska, CEO of the World Poker Tour, opened the evening's introductions with a thanks to WPT GLobal for hosting the event, welcoming everyone in attendance to the celebration of the event and the 20th anniversary of WPT.

The star-studded affair has a host of WPT's most-recognizable in attendance, with Lynn Gilmartin acting as Emcee, joined on stage by Matt Savage, Tony Dunst and Vince Van Patten

“An Amazing Experience”

Joan Fisher is here from Cherokee, North Carolina, recipient of an entry in the $15 MIllion Guarantee $10,400 World Championship via a WPT Global entry earned by Ambassador Andrew Neeme.

“This is an amazing experience, I am so thrilled to be here,” Fisher said while enjoying the food, the drinks and the atmosphere at the player's party at Area 15. One of the first people she ran into was Sami Gebler from the RunGood Poker Series, and it turns out the two used to live just miles apart in Florida.

Fisher is playing Tuesday in Flight B of the World Championship, we'll check in on her progress throughout the World Championship.

Father and Son Time

Joseph Strazinsky is here playing his first-ever live tournament (well, his second as he entered a small event today at Horseshoe Las Vegas to get comfortable). He is a recipient of a ticket made available via WPT GLobal Ambassador Amanda Botfield.

Strazinsky's son Robbie owns and produces CardplayerLifestyle.com, one of the world's premier poker websites with news about the positives in the poker community.

Father and Son were in attendance at the player party, enjoying the time with Robbie introducing his Dad to the many friends he has at this event. I caught up with the pair talking to Poker News Social Media Director Jesse Fullen. Fullen als is a recipient of an entry in the World Championships via a WPT Global Ambassador contest.

World Championship Beings Today

The $15 Million Guarantee $10,400 WPT World Championship is underway, there's nearly 600 players right now and the ready-to-finish $1,100 satellite taking place is providing entries for 60 more players as it concludes.

Players begin competition with 100,000 stacks, playing 10 hour-long levels today. There's three different starting flights - today, tomorrow and Wednesday. Each of the flights is single-entry until the start of Level 7, each player may enter once per flight until they advance to Day 2 starting on Dec. 15. 

WPT Global VIP gathering Tonight

All players entered in the WPT World Championship via WPT Global satellites gather tonight at 6pm for a meet-and-greet in the VIP Lounge inside the Encore Ballroom at Wynn Las Vegas.

A featured guest for this event is Molly Bloom, author of the book-turned movie Molly's Game about the high-stakes poker games she ran in Los Angeles that drew celebrities from many different industries. Bloom is coming to talk with players and tell some of the back-stories about those games featured in the movie.