The $1,100 buy-in, $5,000,000 GTD WPT Prime Championship will take place from Dec. 8-14 at the Wynn Las Vegas as a part of the WPT World Championship Festival (Dec. 3-23). Last year, Calvin Anderson topped a field of 10,512 entrants – nearly double that of 2022 – to win the 2023 WPT Prime Championship for $1,386,280.
The WPT Prime proved so successful that it won the Global Poker Award for Best Mid-Major Tour/Circuit. While the ClubWPT Gold $5M Invitational and WPT World Championship have garnered their share of excitement, the WPT Prime World Championship remains one of the standout events on this year’s thrilling schedule and PokerNewsis preparing for it by catching up with some the 2024 Prime Season.
We previously caught up with WPT Prime Taiwan champ Jereld Sam, and now we touch base with Timothy Chung, who back in September took down the £1,100 WPT Prime UK Championship title and £57,660 in prize money, plus a package to the season-ending WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas.
A Deep Dive into the WPT Prime World Championship and the 2024 Prime Season
No stranger to poker success, the 35-year-old Chung hails from Birmingham, UK dropped out of university where he spent a year studying engineering. He became a poker player while also dealing on the side for three months so that he could learn more about live poker games.
“I learned to play poker when I was 16 years old at my friend’s birthday party. They asked if we wanted to play poker and I said sure,” Chung told PokerNews when asked how he learned the game. “I was always really into games. I already knew the hand rankings prior to this, which made my learning a little bit easier. Then I learned a little more about it whilst playing on Facebook poker for play chips.”
"Just to be consistently always beating the games since I’ve started playing poker is something I guess I can take pride in.”
Nowadays, Chung plays a mix of online and live, both tournaments and cash games up to $100/$200.
When asked about his proudest poker accomplishment, Chung gave an answer you might expect from a poker pro.
“I don’t think I can single out a specific accomplishment since I think there is so much variance in tournaments, but I think just to be consistently always beating the games since I’ve started playing poker is something I guess I can take pride in.”
Chung has been to Las Vegas many times, primarily for the World Series of Poker (WSOP).
“I’ve always focused on trying to win a bracelet, albeit with a shorter time schedule than others, I tend to only stay for around three weeks. so I haven’t really had many opportunities to get big results. But now I get to go over and just focus solely in trying to make money in slightly smaller fields during the WPT World Championship,” said Chung, who will be playing the event for the first time.
*Images courtesy of WPT.
PokerNewswill be at the 2024 WPT Prime Championship offering even more great content, and of course we'll be sure to keep an eye on how Timothy Chung does at the festival.
