Phillip Lee Leads; Fabian Gumz Near the Top; Calvin Anderson Advances With Big Stack

Photo:  Day 1A Chipleader Phillip Lee

The first starting day of the WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas Season 2024 has concluded with 751 entries, of which 245 players advanced in the Grand Ballroom. The attendance is well ahead of last year’s 609 entries and nearly two thirds of the field were knocked out. 

In the closing stages, several contenders were gunning for the top spot and the stack of Fabian Gumz would have been even bigger, he mentioned during the bagging process. “I folded pocket jacks against two all-ins with ace-queen and ace-king, it would have been another four hundred.”

Gumz is second in chips with 1,013,000, trailing only Phillip Lee’s 1,102,000 as the only two players with a seven-figure stack. Last year’s WPT Prime Championship at Wynn Las Vegas winner Calvin Anderson also increased his starting stack more than six-fold to an impressive 721,000.

Photo: Calvin Anderson

The full list of the 245 survivors can be found in the Chip Counts tab (click here), and here’s a look at the top 11:

1.  Phillip Lee – 1,102,000  (220 bb)
2.  Fabian Gumz – 1,013,000 ( 203 bb)
3.  Ricardo Martinez – 925,000 ( 185 bb)
4.  Rabah Abdelmalek – 900,000 ( 180 bb)
5.  Gary Miles – 860,000 ( 172 bb)
6.  Paul Allen – 819,000 ( 164 bb)
7.  Ya Yun Liu – 805,000 ( 161 bb)
8.  Chris Conrad – 800,000 ( 160 bb)
9.  Johan Schumacher – 775,000 ( 155 bb)
10.  Josef Snejberg – 733,000 ( 147 bb)
11.  Calvin Anderson – 721,000 ( 144 bb)

Several other notables narrowly missed the overnight top ten in the opening flight such as Mateusz Moolhuizen (720,000), Michael Wang (671,000), John Riordan (616,000), and Kevin Rabichow (614,000) while the two WSOP Main Event champions Martin Jacobson (386,000) and Joe McKeehen (328,000) made it through with healthy stacks.

WPT Global Poker ambassador Jon “Apestyles” Van Fleet made a late surge up the leaderboard and advanced with nearly starting stacks (490,000). Defending champion Dan Sepiol is also through in the first attempt with a stack of 258,000, just shy of the average on Day 1a.

Photo: Defending champion Dan Sepiol

Another two starting days remain for poker enthusiasts from all over the world to take a shot in the third edition of the flagship $10,400 Championship Event. A single entry is allowed in each of the three flights with Day 1b to follow at 11 a.m. on Sunday, December 15, 2024.

Photo: WPT Prime Slovakia champion Fabian Gumz is second in chips after Day 1A