Meet the Final Table of the WPT World Championship

After a full week’s worth of action, the WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas has officially reached its final table with over $3.1 million awaiting the champion – and there’s a familiar face ready to make his return to the biggest WPT stage of the year.

Chris Moorman is back to play for the WPT World Championship for the second consecutive year. In 2023, Moorman finished fourth for a career-best $2 million, and he’ll look to set yet another high water mark by making the most of his second chance – and he’ll do so starting six-handed action second in chips.

Five players stand in the way of what would be Moorman’s second career WPT victory. Eddie Pak holds a slight chip edge over Moorman as he enters the first major final table of his career.

Behind Pak and Moorman sits Scott Stewart, a boisterous player who has crushed tournaments on the WSOP circuit to the tune of six WSOPC rings in his career. He’ll be looking to level up in a major way with his first chance at a WPT title.

Rounding out this final table of six are three players equally hungry to snatch the spotlight for themselves. Christian Roberts hopes to add a WPT title to his WSOP bracelet win from a year ago. Rob Sherwood looks to turn his $1,100 satellite win into the ultimate spin-up. And Ryan Yu is hopeful that he can improve upon his previous WPT best – a runner-up finish in Niagara Falls six years ago.

They’ll all be back to play to a winner in the WPT World Championship at 4 p.m. Las Vegas time. The action will be live-streamed on WPT’s content channels, which include YouTube and Twitch, on a one-hour delay starting at 5 p.m.

Here’s what they’ll be playing for.

1st: $3,138,900
2nd: $2,075,000
3rd: $1,550,000
4th: $1,150,000
5th: $875,000
6th: $665,000

Before Saturday’s action plays out, here’s what you need to know about each of the six players still in contention for the WPT World Championship title.

All stats and earnings data courtesy of The Hendon Mob.

Eddie Pak – 66,200,000 (83 BB)

Age: 31
Los Angeles, California
Lifetime Live Tournament Earnings: $431,609
Biggest Lifetime Cash: $200,000, 47th, 2024 WSOP Main Event
Other Notable Results: $61,705, 3rd, 2023 Parkwest Bicycle Casino Winn’ O The Green $500 No Limit Hold’em

Edward Pak’s career has been on the rise over the last two years, and things hit an entirely new level over the summer with a top-50 finish in the 2024 WSOP Main Event. But as good as things have been, making this final table represents something else entirely in Pak’s career.

Pak is now guaranteed to earn more in one tournament than he has across every other result he’s accumulated since his very first recorded Hendon Mob cash in 2017.

After starting out Day 5 in the middle of the chip counts, Pak started his surge towards the chip lead when he eliminated five-time WSOP bracelet winner Brian Yoon in 11th place. Pak then went on to eliminate Joshua Lisberger in 10th and Jonathan Willis in 9th to crest above 70 million chips – comfortably the top stack several times over at that point, and enough to put him in first place when the final table kicks off on Saturday.

“I’m literally on Cloud Nine. I started the day a little bit under average stack, got a double first few levels – rode the wave, rode the heater and here I am.”

While it was on a smaller scale, Pak has been in a similar chip position before and feels acutely aware of the chip dynamics and the amount of money on the line as he hopes not to repeat history.

“I have actually butchered a spot like this before where I came into the final day as the chip leader and I actually finished sixth – which was really brutal,” said Pak. “So, I learned a lot from that and I’m going to apply my learnings from that experience to this and pick my spots and be careful. The ICM implications are crazy, there’s a lot of money, a lot of pay jumps and I’m really going to pay attention to that.”

End of Day Chip Counts:
Day 1: 649,000 (43/821)
Day 2: 2,350,000 (5/299)
Day 3: 4,500,000 (25/61)
Day 4: 13,250,000 (9/16)

Chris Moorman – 60,800,000 (76 BB)

Age: 39
Brighton, England
Lifetime Live Tournament Earnings: $9,050,755
Biggest Lifetime Cash: $2,095,300, 4th, 2023 WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas
Other Notable Results: $1,068,690, 2nd, 2011 WSOP Europe Main Event; $1,068,690, 1st, 2014 WPT L.A. Poker Classic; $716,282, 2011 WSOP $10,000 Six-Max No Limit Hold’em Championship; $498,682, 1st, 2017 WSOP $3,000 Six-Max No Limit Hold’em

If it feels like you’ve seen this story before with Chris Moorman, it’s not your mind playing tricks on you. One year after playing all the way down to the final table of the WPT World Championship and finishing fourth for over $2 million – a career-best live result – Moorman is back again.

“It’s everything… it’s funny, I was kind of on a bad run for a few months post-WSOP,” said Moorman. “I came and played the Prime and I was on Day 2, and there was this random kid on the table I got moved to and I had a good stack and the first thing he said was ‘I thought last year you played the best out of everyone at the final table. ‘ Obviously I didn’t really get many hands, I had the one big pot that I could pull the trigger on, I did and he said ‘who am I to say, but I thought you played really good.’

“He probably didn’t even know how much that meant to me in the moment because I’d had a couple of bad months run and then I made a deep run in the WPT Prime Championship. It didn’t work out – you’ve gotta beat 9,600 players so it’s pretty tough. And then here it was like, here we go again, I started building a stack and it just felt like deja vu.”

Moorman is already a WPT Champions Club member, having won the WPT L.A. Poker Classic in 2014, as well as a two-time WSOP bracelet winner. But he’d certainly like to join an elite list of players with multiple titles on both tours.

Moorman surged into the chip lead late on Day 4 after floating near the middle of the pack for most of the tournament, and despite a dip in his chip count a late run on Day 5 has Moorman in second place as he makes the televised WPT World Championship for the second straight year.

End of Day Chip Counts:
Day 1: 436,000 (157/821)
Day 2: 965,000 (99/299)
Day 3: 5,345,000 (18/61)
Day 4: 30,600,000 (1/16)

Scott Stewart – 40,800,000 (51 BB)

Age: 36
Long Beach, California
Lifetime Live Tournament Earnings: $2,980,021
Biggest Lifetime Cash: $535,000, 13th, 2017 WSOP Main Event
Other Notable Results: $202,400, 17th, 2019 PokerStars PSPC $25,000 No Limit Hold’em; $177,817, 1st, 2021 bestbet Winter Open $2,000 Main Event

It wasn’t enough for Scott Stewart to make a deep run in the WPT Prime Championship, and then cash in the ClubWPT Gold $5 Million freeroll on the same day. No, he had to go and put both of those tournament performances to shame by making the biggest final table of his life.

And he’s been having a blast every step along the way.

“I have no idea how some people sit there stoic and don’t say a word all day with sunglasses,” said Stewart. “Yeah, that’s crazy to me. If I’m not having fun, why am I here? And if I’m having a miserable time, I usually just lose, sometimes it’s worth having a good time.”

Stewart has been close to a major breakout on several occasions. His career-best cash before this tournament, good for over half-a-million dollars, is courtesy of a 13th place finish in the 2017 WSOP Main Event. He also ran deep in the $25,000 buy-in PokerStars PSPC in 2019.

Most of his success to this point had been on a regional level, as Stewart has six WSOP Circuit rings among a bevy of similar titles. Now, with a new live high score set, Stewart can turn his focus towards a life-changing $3.1 million first-place prize.

End of Day Chip Counts:
Day 1: 821,000 (17/821)
Day 2: 2,079,000 (13/299)
Day 3: 6,650,000 (7/61)
Day 4: 29,125,000 (2/16)

Christian Roberts – 28,600,000 (36 BB)

Age: 29
Caracas, Venezuela
Lifetime Live Tournament Earnings: $850,331
Biggest Lifetime Cash: $218,807, 2nd, 2024 WSOP Circuit Commerce Casino Main Event
Other Notable Results: $154,359, 1st, 2023 WSOP Online $500 Summer Saver; $102,492, 2nd, 2024 WSOP $1,500 Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo

Christian Roberts was among the chip leaders for a frankly ridiculously long stretch of this WPT World Championship, and while he’ll start Saturday’s final table in fourth place out of six, Roberts has a comfortable feel for where things stand because of his previous experiences in poker.

“If we’re talking about the energy [on the final table set], I have a very supportive rail, many of them mentees and students of mine in poker,” said Roberts. “I’ve always been very comfortable at a poker table, and eventually it was a feeling of, ‘Yep, I belong here.’ This is somewhere I can dominate when I’m happy, and I don’t need to act like a tool in order to succeed.”

Roberts is the second ever player from Venezuela to win a WSOP bracelet, having won an online event over the summer back in 2023. Earlier this year, Roberts nearly added a second, settling for runner-up in a $1,500 Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo gold bracelet event.

That experience and his feel for the game has Roberts confident heading into Saturday’s final table, the biggest of his career so far. The only thing that Roberts finds less than ideal is the player sitting to his direct left.

“I do feel very confident against, I would say, all of the players except for Moorman, who is obviously world class,” said Roberts. “He’s well aware of what’s going on – he’s going to be shutting me down in spots and I just need to have awareness of that, and discipline.”

End of Day Chip Counts:
Day 1: 647,000 (44/821)
Day 2: 2,615,000 (4/299)
Day 3: 6,485,000 (9/61)
Day 4: 22,050,000 (4/16)

Rob Sherwood – 25,600,000 (32 BB)

Age: 46
Manchester, England
Lifetime Live Tournament Earnings: $1,154,110
Biggest Lifetime Cash: $220,208, 4th, 2010 Irish Poker Open Main Event
Other Notable Results: $78,752, 2nd, 2009 Spanish Poker Tour Grand Finale Main Event

Everything seems to have been going right for Rob Sherwood from the moment he sat down in the WPT World Championship. After winning his way into the tournament via an $1,100 satellite, Sherwood was greeted at his opening table from what must have felt like a gift from the poker gods.

“The first day was just brilliant,” said Sherwood. “I came in at 11 a.m., and a guy from Texas was on my direct left. Straightaway, as the first hand was dealt told the cocktail waitress ‘I’ll have a Grey Goose and Red Bull’ and that set the tone for the day. People were just giving me chips.”

Sherwood found himself with a comfortable stack for the vast majority of this WPT World Championship, but he got a crucial double-up late on Day 5 when he needed it most. Immediately following the elimination of Anze Smajd in eighth place, Sherwood got all in with an open-ended straight draw and flush draw and unexpectedly found himself way ahead of Pak’s lesser open-ended straight draw.

The flush connected and gave Sherwood enough ammunition to be a true threat heading into Saturday’s final table. In a career spanning almost 20 years, highlighted by a 2010 final table in the Irish Poker Open, no opportunity comes close to the one Sherwood finds himself in in this moment.

And yet, to this point, he hasn’t felt phased in the slightest.

“I felt pretty relaxed,” said Sherwood. “I think sometimes I feel more intense in smaller tournaments because I feel I should be doing well in those. Whereas this was kind of just a shot. I think when you’re playing you don’t think about how big the actual money is.”

End of Day Chip Counts:
Day 1: 333,000 (267/821)
Day 2: 1,800,000 (26/299)
Day 3: 4,995,000 (21/61)
Day 4: 8,950,000 (11/16)

Ryan Yu – 17,200,000 (22 BB)

Age: 41
Seoul, South Korea
Lifetime Live Tournament Earnings: $2,030,011
Biggest Lifetime Cash: $261,430, 36th, 2019 WSOP Main Event
Other Notable Results: $239,023, 2nd, 2018 WPT Fallsview Poker Classic; $162,744, 2nd, 2017 WPT Fallsview C$2,500 No Limit Hold’em

Ryan Yu has been on the razor’s edge of a WPT title before, narrowly losing out to Mike Leah for the WPT Fallsview Poker Classic title six years ago. Like several other players, Yu also has a top-50 run in the WSOP Main Event, finishing in 36th back in 2019.

Before Pak went on his tear through the remaining field with three consecutive knockouts, Yu scored an elimination of Fabian Gumz in 12th place, scooping a major pot and putting an official end to the WPT Season 22 Player of the Year race in the process. After going through some rough stretches Yu had to fight through several periods late on Day 5 of shoving all in to accumulate chips, but he was able to navigate his short stack into a top-six position and a chance at something more on Saturday.

It was a positive end to a day that Yu felt might be on the verge of slipping away from him.

“I was at like 38 mil right away at the beginning of the day, and then I played, honestly, two of the worst levels of poker I’ve ever played in my career,” said Yu. “I think afterwards, I just calmed down a little. I’ve been grinding, I’ve been laddering, so I haven’t really had too much action [since].”

End of Day Chip Counts:
Day 1: 272,000 (378/821)
Day 2: 465,000 (184/299)
Day 3: 4,930,000 (22/61)
Day 4: 20,000,000 (5/16)