WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic

The WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic is an annual tournament as part of the World Poker Tour that is played out at Bellagio Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. It has been part of every season of the World Poker Tour after being the inaugural event in Season 1 (I) in 2002.

History

The World Poker Tour's first-ever event was the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic that began on May 27, 2002. Gus Hansen was crowned the first champion and also became the first player to final table this event twice when he finished third in Season 2 behind eventual winner Paul Phillips. Season 2 would see the date of the event shifted to December where it currently remains on the schedule every season. In Season 3 the buy-in was raised from $10,200 to $15,300 and Daniel Negreanu won the event.
The $15,000 buy-in remained through to Season 8 before it was reduced back to $10,000. In Season 9, Antonio Esfandiari won the event which would be the first of his three consecutive final table appearances as he finished sixth in Season 10 and fourth in Season 11. Andrew Lichtenberger also has three final tables in this event with two coming back-to-back in Season 10 and Season 11.
Two players have both won an event and finished runner-up. Ryan Tosoc finished second in Season 15 before winning in Season 16, while Alex Foxen finished second in Season 16 before winning in Season 18.
The event was moved to October for Season 20, which was the first time it wasn't held in December since the inaugural season. Chad Eveslage won his second WPT title and $1,042,300 after he defeated Steve Buckner.
From Season 16, the final tables were streamed on PokerGO.

Event results

Season 1 (I): WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic

5-Day Event: May 27-June 1, 2002Buy-in: $10,200Number of Entrants: 146Total Prize Pool: $1,416,200Number of Payouts: 18Winning Hand:

Place

Name

Prize

1st

Season 2 (II): WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic

4-Day Event: December 15–18, 2003Buy-in: $10,200Number of Entrants: 314Total Prize Pool: $3,044,750Number of Payouts: 36Winning Hand:

Place

Name

Prize

1st

Season 3 (III): WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic

5-Day Event: December 14–18, 2004Buy-in: $15,300Number of Entrants: 376Total Prize Pool: $5,470,800Number of Payouts: 50Winning Hand:

Place

Name

Prize

1st

Season 4 (IV): WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic

5-Day Event: December 12–16, 2005Buy-in: $15,300Number of Entrants: 555Total Prize Pool: $8,075,250Number of Payouts: 100Winning Hand:

Place

Name

Prize

1st

Season 5 (V): WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic

6-Day Event: December 14–19, 2006Buy-in: $15,400Number of Entrants: 583Total Prize Pool: $8,482,650Number of Payouts: 100Winning Hand:

Place

Name

Prize

1st

Season 6 (VI): WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic

7-Day Event: December 12–18, 2007Buy-in: $15,400Number of Entrants: 626Total Prize Pool: $9,390,000Number of Payouts: 100Winning Hand:

Place

Name

Prize

1st

Season 7 (VII): WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic

7-Day Event: December 13–19, 2008Buy-in: $15,400Number of Entrants: 497Total Prize Pool: $7,231,350Number of Payouts: 100Winning Hand:

Place

Name

Prize

1st

Season 8 (VIII): WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic

7-Day Event: December 13–19, 2009Buy-in: $15,400Number of Entrants: 329Total Prize Pool: $4,761,450Number of Payouts: 27Winning Hand:

Place

Name

Prize

1st

Season 9 (IX): WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic

6-Day Event: December 3–8, 2010Buy-in: $10,300Number of Entrants: 438Total Prize Pool: $4,261,267Number of Payouts: 100Winning Hand:

Place

Name

Prize

1st

Season 10 (X): WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic

6-Day Event: December 6–11, 2011Buy-in: $10,300Number of Entrants: 413Total Prize Pool: $4,006,100Number of Payouts: 100Winning Hand:

Place

Name

Prize

1st

Season 11 (XI): WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic

6-Day Event: December 4–9, 2012Buy-in: $10,300Number of Entrants: 503Total Prize Pool: $4,879,100Number of Payouts: 54Winning Hand:

Place

Name

Prize

1st

Season 12 (XII): WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic

6-Day Event: December 6–11, 2013Buy-in: $10,300Number of Entrants: 449Total Prize Pool: $4,355,300Number of Payouts: 45Winning Hand:

Place

Name

Prize

1st

Season 13 (XIII): WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic

6-Day Event: December 15–20, 2014Buy-in: $10,300Number of Entrants: 586Total Prize Pool: $5,684,200Number of Payouts: 54Winning Hand:

Place

Name

Prize

1st

Season 14 (XIV): WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic

6-Day Event: December 14–19, 2015Buy-in: $10,400Number of Entrants: 639Total Prize Pool: $6,198,300Number of Payouts: 63Winning Hand:

Place

Name

Prize

1st

Season 15 (XV): WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic

6-Day Event: December 5–10, 2016Buy-in: $10,400Number of Entrants: 791Total Prize Pool: $7,672,700Number of Payouts: 72Winning Hand:

Place

Name

Prize

1st

Season 16 (XVI): WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic

6-Day Event: December 5–10, 2017Buy-in: $10,400Number of Entrants: 812Total Prize Pool: $7,876,400Number of Payouts: 81Winning Hand:

Place

Name

Prize

1st

Season 17 (XVII): WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic

5-Day Event: December 11–15, 2018Buy-in: $10,400Number of Entrants: 1,001Total Prize Pool: $9,709,700Number of Payouts: 126Winning Hand:

Place

Name

Prize

1st

Season 18 (XVIII): WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic

5-Day Event: December 16–21, 2019Buy-in: $10,400Number of Entrants: 1,035Total Prize Pool: $10,039,500Number of Payouts: 130Winning Hand:

Place

Name

Prize

1st

Season 19 (XIX): WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic

5-Day Event: December 15–19, 2021Buy-in: $10,400Number of Entrants: 716Total Prize Pool: $6,945,200Number of Payouts: 90Winning Hand:

Place

Name

Prize

1st

Season 20 (XX): WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic

5-Day Event: October 19–23, 2022Buy-in: $10,400Number of Entrants: 569Total Prize Pool: $5,519,300Number of Payouts: 72Winning Hand:

Place

Name

Prize

1st

Multiple final tables

Both Antonio Esfandiari and Andrew Lichtenberger have made three final tables each. Esfandiari made three consecutive final tables from Season 9 (IX) to Season 11 (XI), while two of Lichtenberger's final tables came back-to-back in Season 10 (X) and Season 11 (XI).

Name

Total

Wins

Biggest payouts

Below is a list of players that have cashed for over $1,000,000 at the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic in a single event.

Rank	Player	Prize	Place	Season
1	Books 1 Vineland 71,214 2 Project Hail Mary 31,941 3 Wuthering Heights 18,607 4 Hamlet 15,928 5 Hamnet (novel) 15,832 6 Frankenstein 11,017 7 Flowers in the Attic 10,307 8 The Count of Monte Cristo 9,133 9 Dune Messiah 8,113 10 The Testaments 8,006 Films 1 Sinners (2025 film) 622,394 2 Hamnet (film) 295,777 3 Weapons (2025 film) 223,917 4 Mr Nobody Against Putin 163,645 5 Marty Supreme 149,377 6 KPop Demon Hunters 133,023 7 Sentimental Value 129,966 8 Bugonia (film) 112,650 9 The Secret Agent (2025 film) 77,032 10 All the Empty Rooms 73,731 Programming Languages 1 Python (programming language) 4,694 2 C (programming language) 4,564 3 JavaScript 3,307 4 Scratch (programming language) 2,739 5 C++ 2,012 6 Rust (programming language) 1,710 7 Java (programming language) 1,662 8 R (programming language) 1,501 9 COBOL 1,427 10 YAML 1,308 TV Series 1 The Madison (TV series) 106,133 2 One Piece (2023 TV series) 76,319 3 Scarpetta (TV series) 62,845 4 Paradise (2025 TV series) 48,765 5 The Other Bennet Sister 39,436 6 The Pitt 39,127 7 DTF St. Louis 37,811 8 Love Story (2026 TV series) 32,476 9 Young Sherlock (British TV series) 30,900 10 Bridgerton 29,723 Video Games 1 Resident Evil Requiem 23,671 2 Wordle 22,659 3 Crimson Desert 21,539 4 Pokémon Pokopia 21,183 5 Pokémon (video game series) 8,283 6 Minecraft 7,928 7 Roblox 7,908 8 Grand Theft Auto VI 7,100 9 Grand Theft Auto V 6,727 10 Poppy Playtime 6,368 © 2026 OWIKI.org. Content is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Status: ONLINE Version: 1.05