Michael Wang Wins World Poker Tour Playground Championship Main Event

Michael Wang has managed at least one marquee live tournament victory in each of the past three years on the circuit. His latest big win saw him come out on top of a field of 840 entries in the 2024 World Poker Tour Playground Championship $3,500 CAD buy-in no-limit hold’em main event. The New Jersey native earned $276,634 and his first WPT title after coming out on top.

“Right now, it still feels a little surreal. I’m sure it will hit me a little more when I go home or take in a little more,” Wang told WPT reporters after coming out on top. “I’ve been coming to WPTs for so many years and haven’t had a final table… so it means the world to me. I can’t believe it happened.”

Wang’s most notable victory of 2023 saw him take down a $10,300 buy-in event at the Wynn Millions for $308,016. In 2022, he earned his second career World Series of Poker bracelet and $541,604 as the champion of the $5,000 eight-max event. His first bracelet had come back in 2015 in another $5,000 buy-in affair. Wang now has nearly $7 million in career tournament earnings to his name.

This was Wang’s first title and 12th final-table finish of 2024. The 1,368 Card Player Player of the Year points he secured with the win brought his total to 3,467. That sum is currently good for 46th place in the 2024 POY standings presented by Global Poker.

The strong turnout for this event saw the $1.5 million CAD guarantee easily surpassed. The $2,688,000 CAD ($1,934,857 USD) final prize pool was paid out amongst the top 105 finishers. Big names that ran deep included recent Moneymaker Tour Aruba main event runner-up Duff Charette (48th), four-time WPT champion Darren Elias (31st), and bracelet winner Tommy Nguyen (30th).

The final day began with six players remaining and Baron Ha in the lead. Amirpasha Emami was the shortest stack when play began, and was soon all-in and at risk with pocket nines facing the pocket queens of Jordan Grant. Neither player connected with a king-high runout and Emami was eliminated in sixth place ($60,464).

It took more than 100 hands of five-handed action before the next elimination finally took place. Zachary Fischer got his stack in preflop with AA leading the 1010 of Grant. The board came down J9875 and Grant turned a jack-high straight to crack Fischer’s aces. Fischer headed to the payout window to collect $79,899 for his fifth-place showing.

Grant held the lead early in four-handed play, but lost a big all-in with pocket kings against the top pair or sixes and gutshot of Ha. The turn improved Ha to trips sixes and he held from there to double through Grant.

The last 17 big blinds in Grant’s stack went in as a three-bet shove with KQ. Wang, who had min-raised from the button, called with 99. The A55 flop gave Grant a flush draw to go with his overcards, but the 9 turn left his drawing dead. The Q on the end was a mere formality, as Grant was eliminated in fourth place ($105,093) at the hands of Wang and his nines full.

After a handful of three-handed orbits, Ha open-shoved from the button with K7 for 12 big blinds. Wang quickly called from the big blind with 77 and held through a queen-high runout. Ha was awarded $141,083 as the third-place finisher, while Wang entered heads-up play with 24,300,000 to Santiago Plante’s 17,400,000.

Details haven’t been released, but WPT reporters indicated that Wang and Plante came to a deal at some point to re-distribute the remaining prize money a bit. As they played on, Wang pulled even further ahead. In the final hand, Wan shoved from the button for just over eight big blinds effective with QJ from the button. Plante called with K2 from the big blind and the Q8643 board gave Wang a winning pair of queens. Plante walked away with $210,417 as the runner-up. This was the second-largest score yet for Plante, trailing only the $552,204 he earned as the fourth-place finisher in last year’s European Poker Tour Barcelona main event.

Here is a look at the payouts and POY points awarded at the final table:

Photo credits: World Poker Tour.