Jeremy Becker puts in a lot of volume at Wynn Las Vegas, where he's well known for dominating daily tournaments and running up big chip stacks.
But the vibes will be a little bit different on Friday when 'The Wynn Wrecker' returns with the chip lead for Day 5 of the WPT World Championship, where he will play for a shot at the final table and a final prize worth over $2.5 million.
It's the fifth six-figure cash of the young crusher's career and potentially his first million dollar win. Becker leads a pack of 16 players that includes three former WPT champions, starting with Soheb Porbandarwala in the third slot behind Arizona native Jeremy Brown in second. The other champs lurk further down the list, where Konstantin Held and Jared Jaffee are still hanging around in what is now the back half of the leaderboard.
Champions Club member Jared Jaffee (left) will start from the back half of the leaderboard. Becker surges after dinner
The long road to now started last weekend, where three opening flights drew 1,865 entries for a prize pool just over $18 million. From there, 733 came back for Day 2 and 241 runners emerged from that for Day 3. Among the early big stacks were big names like Phil Ivey and Johnny 'World' Hennigan, and a few returning faces like Triple Crown Mohsin Charania. But they're all gone now, most painfully Ivey, who suffered a runner-runner around the midway point of Day 3.
Held's lead carried Day 3, followed by Porbandarwala and Brian Battistone in third, both of whom are still in for Day 5.
Phil Ivey didn't make it out of Day 3. Becker returned on Day 4 in firm standing among the final 64 players, all of whom were chasing Held's massive Day 3 chip lead, but it was a late blooming session. He found some momentum in the early evening after David Pelosi tried to bluff him with a 1.4M bet on a board with all low cards, but Becker found the call with pocket queens and moved above. By the dinner break, however, he had cut that figure by almost half and returned with only 20bb to play.
The plan would come together over the next two hours, where Becker mounted a run that put him above 17M with 87bb for the final stretch of the evening. He added another big hand against Dao Nguyen before he busted Vincent Lam at the end of the night to finish with the big stack.
2025 WPT Championship Day 5 seat draw
The first table starts with WPT Champions Club member Jaffee in the first seat with 25 big blinds, along with Day 4 chip leader and fellow WPT Champ Held further around the orbit with 28 big blinds. Table draw luck put the top four stacks on the other table, leaving one of the three lower counts, Battistone, over here. The first table also holds the lone remaining woman in the field, Linglin Zeng.
Pay jumps will come into play right away, with 16th place grabbing $145K before it jumps to $174K for 13th-15th. There will be a lot of tip-toed spying between the two tables as they navigate over $100K in pay jumps before they reach a final table of nine.
Table 312
- Seat 1: Jared Jaffee - 6,250,000 (25bb)
- Seat 2: Adrian Troya - 1,900,000 (8bb)
- Seat 3: Brian Battistone - 4,600,000 (18bb)
- Seat 4: Graeme Newman - 14,650,000 (59bb)
- Seat 5: David Pelosi - 13,000,000 (52bb)
- Seat 6: Konstantin Held - 6,900,000 (28bb)
- Seat 7: Linglin Zeng - 7,500,000 (30bb)
- Seat 8: Schuyler Thornton - 14,175,000 (57bb)
Meanwhile, the second table will feature the big stacks and the lowest, Stanislav Barshak, with just 13 big blinds. Becker starts the day in the eighth seat, just to the left of the short stack, with the other low person two spots to his own left. Elsewhere to his left, Becker will have to deal with Brown in the first seat (85bb), Porbandarwala in Seat 3 (76bb) and Hassan El Hakim in Seat 4 (71bb).
The road to the WPT Championship will probably go through Soheb Porbandarwala.Table 313
- Seat 1: Jeremy Brown - 21,350,000 (85bb)
- Seat 2: Jim Gilbert - 5,000,000 (20bb)
- Seat 3: Soheb Porbandarwala - 18,975,000 (76bb)
- Seat 4: Hassan El Hakim - 17,675,000 (71bb)
- Seat 5: Chad Lipton - 14,475,000 (58bb)
- Seat 6: Maxx Coleman - 12,500,000 (50bb)
- Seat 7: Stanislav Barshak - 3,175,000 (13bb)
- Seat 8: Jeremy Becker - 24,300,000 (97bb)
The final 16 players will reconvene at 12pm Vegas time on Friday and they will play 90-minute levels until only six players remain. Those six will return on Saturday for a live broadcast of the final table as the curtain drops on the 2025 WPT Championship.
Remaining payouts
| Place | Prize |
|---|---|
| 1st | $2,528,200* |
| 2nd | $1,700,000 |
| 3rd | $1,250,000 |
| 4th | $940,000 |
| 5th | $710,000 |
| 6th | $540,000 |
| 7th | $415,000 |
| 8th | $325,000 |
| 9th-10th | $255,000 |
* - includes $10,400 package for 2026
Images courtesy of World Poker Tour.
