On Saturday, the World Poker Tour (WPT) $3,500 buy-in, $2 million GTD WPT Cyprus Championship field stood at 641 entries with 297 of them returning for Day 2. However, there was still two hours of late registration available, and during that time more than 100 runners entered the field.
When official numbers were revealed, the field had swelled to 775 entrants (283 entries of Day 1a, 173 on Day 1b, 185 on Day 1c, and 134 on Day 2), which meant the $2 million guarantee was passed as a $2,402,500 prize pool was up for grabs to the top 97 finishers. The eventual winner of the tournament will take home a hefty $401,100 and have their name etched on the Mike Sexton Champions Cup.
That is considerably more than the $310,000 won by Alexander Lakhov 11 years earlier in the 2014 WPT Cyprus, the last time a main tour stop was hosted on the island nation.
Uladzimir Zhyharau bagged the chip lead heading into Day 3.
After 10 levels of play, just 70 players survived, with Uladzimir Zhyharau and his stack of 1,700,000 leading the pack. Others still in contention were Onur Ozgur (905,000), WPT Global Ambassador Romulo Dorea (725,000), Ray Qartomy (560,000), and Day 1a chip leader Aleksandr Pak (445,000).
Top 10 End-of-Day Day 2 Chip Counts
Among those to fall well before the money on Day 2 were the aforementioned Lakhov, WPT Season 17 Player of the Year Erkut Yilmaz, WPTDeepStacks champs Laurent Polito, Tommy Vedes, and Omar Lakhdari, ClubWPT Gold Ambassador Patrick “Egption” Tardif, WPT Prime Champions Stephen Song and Fabian Gumz, Ren Lin, recent PokerNews Podcast guests Tony Dunst and Will Kassouf; as well as Sinead Davenport.
Sinead Davenport
Davenport was on the wrong end of poker’s ultimate cooler in Level 14 (3,000/5,000/5,000) in a hand captured by the WPT Live Reporting Team. A preflop raising war saw Davenport get her stack of roughly 210,000 all in preflop holding the K♦K♣ against Konstantin Generalov, who had her dominated with the A♠A♦. The board ran out an unhelpful 6♦6♣3♥Q♦2♣ and Davenport hit the rail.
The money bubble hit in Level 17 (5,000/10,000/10,000), and that is when Yohan Rascar moved all in under the gun for his last 20,000 holding the A♣J♠ and was ahead but at risk against the A♥6♥ of Miklos Zsuffa in middle position. Unfortunately for Rascar, the board ran out 9♣7♥2♣6♦3♠ and Zsuffa paired up to burst the bubble.
The 2025 WPT Cyprus bubble bursts.
The remaining 97 players were each guaranteed $6,200 in prize money, and after one more level, the field was whittled down to 70 players. Among those to walk away with a payday were Stefan Aerts (94th – $6,200), Ioana Apostol (84th – $6,200), Joseph El Khoury (78th – $7,100), and Sergeiu Cornea (71st – $7,100).
The remaining 70 players are guaranteed at least $7,100 in prize money, but everyone is eyeing up much bigger paydays.
Here’s a look at the final table payouts:
2025 WPT Cyprus Final Table Payouts
*First-place amount includes the winner’s $10,400 entry into the season-ending WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas.
Day 3 will get underway at Noon local time on Sunday, with the plan to either play 10 more levels or down to the final table, whichever comes first. PokerNews is on-site to offer content, social media, and interviews, so be sure to check back frequently for all the latest from the WPT Cyprus!
2025 WPT Cyprus Remaining Schedule
Images courtesy of the World Poker Tour
