WPT Cambodia Championship 2025 Event Reaches $2.4 Million Prize Pool; Held and McCully Looking for Repeat

The two starting days for the WPT Cambodia Championship 2025 have concluded and the crown jewel of the schedule picked up where it concluded the year prior in the Grand Ballroom at NagaWorld in Phnom Penh city. In partnership with Connaissance Management Limited, the marquee event came with a price tag of $3,500, carried a $1.5 Million guarantee and easily sailed past that on Day 1b. Ultimately, a total of 750 entries generated a prize pool of $2,400,750 and the top 94 finishers will earn a piece of that.

WPT Cambodia Championship 2025

Among those still in contention for the WPT Cambodia Championship title and to have one’s name etched in the Mike Sexton WPT Champions Cup are the defending champion Konstantin Held and last year’s runner-up Joshua McCully.

Day 1A attracted a total of 437 entries and 109 players advanced led by Germany’s Joshua Gebissa, who catapulted to the top of the leaderboard with 571,000 in chips during the final hands of the night. Gebissa won a big flip with ace-king suited against the pocket queens of Daniel Neilson to soar past Juyeol Lee (428,500) and Adrien Berger (412,500).

Also among the big stacks in the first flight were Thomas Boivin (396,500), Brian Green (326,500), Max Deveson (311,000), Javier Gomez (288,000), and Adam Friedman (282,000) in a rather stacked field, quite unusual for the Asia-Pacific poker region.

Defending champion Held had a rather torrid festival up until then, but ran well enough when it mattered to turn his starting stack of 50,000 into nearly five times as many, advancing to Day 2 with 242,000. Close behind him are other notables such as Kunal Patni (215,500), Masato Yokosawa (207,000) and Amin Riyazati (183,500), the latter just shipped his second trophy during the series while Day 1B took place.

Many of those not fortunate enough to bag up on Day 1a took another shot or two in the second flight, which attracted 403 entries. That was on par with the attendance figure of last year when the Mike Sexton WPT Champions Cup was on display here in Cambodia for the first time.

Ultimately, it fell short by only ten entries and the 750 total entries actually mirror the figure of the 2019 WPTDeepStacks Event at the very same venue. That’s when the WPT visited Cambodia for the first time and Brian Tougias took home $131,430 for his efforts. Since then, the mid-stakes series was rebranded to WPT Prime and the third edition in Cambodia concluded just a few days ago.

A new overall chip leader was crowned on Day 1b as Ivan Karatayeu bagged up 599,500 in chips, one single chip shy of 12 starting stacks. During one of the last hands of the night, Karatayeu knocked out Prime Championship Event finalist Yannick Jobin with aces versus ace-king preflop to cement his status atop the leaderboard.

While Neilson was ousted during the final stages one day prior, he came back with a vengeance and claimed the second-largest tally to his name with an impressive 483,000, closely followed by Dylan DeStefano (471,500). Former Poker Dream Main Event champion Thi Bao An Nguyen also had a great day at the tables made it through with 392,000, as did John Matsuda (332,000), Dominik Nitsche (318,500) and WPT anchor Lynn Gilmartin (313,500) on her first visit to Cambodia.

Neng Zhao had his aces cracked by deuces but returned for the second bullet to turn it into 275,000, while fellow Aussie McCully needed multiple bullets to eventually make it through on 145,500. That’s just shy of the average, but McCully is certainly capable to go very deep in this tournament once again.

In total, another 133 players punched their ticket for Day 2 and 242 players are fighting for the seven-figure prize pool. As of today, the level duration increases to 90 minutes each and five of them are scheduled for Day 2 for an early finish with the incredibly deep structure. It is expected that the money bubble will burst today and the winner is set to be crowned on February 24, 2025.

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