WPT Voyage: Do You Know Who Sailed Away with the Biggest Poker Prize at Sea?

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Mar 22, 2024 6 min read

The excitement is ramping up for one of the most unique events of the year as time draws closer to the start of the highly anticipated WPT Voyage.

From March 31 to April 6, 2024, the World Poker Tour will take over an entire Virgin Voyages cruise ship—the 1,400-cabin Valiant Lady—for a six-day poker festival that features $1.5 million in guarantees, including a $5,000 buy-in and $1,000,000 GTD WPT Main Event.

Poker Cruises have long been entrenched in the game's history, but it's been quite some time since an aquatic-based jaunt has drummed up this level of notoriety. So we thought it'd make sense to take a journey back in time to revisit some of poker's memorable moments that took place amongst the waves and literal fish.

2002: Have You Ever Seen Payouts Like This?

While several poker cruises took place a year, the Party Poker Million was long thought of as the showstopper of the seas and the inaugural edition still lives long in poker lore, mainly due to the crazy payout structure!

Played as Limit Hold'em, the event consisted of 100 qualifiers while 39 others paid the $8,000 entry. It was the first-ever tournament that combined online qualifiers and direct buy-ins, as well as being the first Hold’em tournament to offer a $1 million winner's prize.

As the cruise sailed through the Mexican Riviera, Kathy Liebert was crowned champion, which she told PokerNews in 20122 that it was her biggest achievement.

"If that had been a WPT event, I would have been the first woman to win a WPT event," Liebert said at the time. "That was actually Steve Lipscomb’s first Travel Channel poker show, so I’m not sure that’s the one I’m most proud of, but I did beat Phil Hellmuth, Chris Ferguson, and Mel Judah at the final table. So I guess, in a sense, that would be the biggest.

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2003: WPT Adopts the Party Poker Million

The Party Poker Million cruise did become a WPT event the following year and was part of Season One of the WPT.

Howard Lederer, a name that still leaves a sour taste in much of the poker community's mouth due to his role in contributing to Black Friday, won the event, overcoming Chip Jett in heads-up.

The tournament continued to run under the Limit Hold'em format and saw an increase in participation, thanks partly to the drop in buy-in to $5,000. This time around, the host was Holland America's MS Zaandam, sailing from Port Canaveral, Florida, to the Virgin Islands.

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2004: Do You Remember This Stacked Final Table?

In 2004, the buy-in was raised to $7,500 and the entry count soared to 546. A seven-figure payout for the winner was reinstalled after the final prize pool reached $3,707,840.

The final table for Party Poker Million III was stacked with huge names from the poker world, with the likes of Daniel Negreanu, Steve Zolotow, Barry Greenstein, Scotty Nguyen and John Juanda all making the final table.

Erick Lindgren, who finished seventh the year earlier, became a two-time WPT champion after defeating Negreanu in heads-up.

Lindgren, a then-sponsored professional, also found himself embroiled somewhat in the Full Tilt Poker scandal. He had been receiving a monthly paycheck from Full Tilt Poker until Black Friday struck, causing him to lose this source of income. With a passion for sports betting, Lindgren found himself burdened by substantial gambling debts that he couldn't settle. As a result, in late November 2012, he sought help by enrolling in a rehab program designed to address problem gambling.

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2005: The Biggest Poker Prize in Cruise History

Poker Cruises continued to grow in popularity, and the fourth instalment of the Party Poker Million was the largest poker event to take place on a cruise ship.

In 2005, the champion and the runner-up each walked away with $1 million payouts. Maciek "Mike" Gracz claimed the title and a $1.5 million prize, while David Minto secured second place and pocketed $1 million. That year, the tournament attracted over 730 players who qualified to vie for a prize pool surpassing $7.4 million.

Three months later, Gracz won his first World Series of Poker bracelet in the $1,000 NLH event, scooping the first prize of $594,460.

That spectacular string of successes vaulted Gracz to a career as a high-profile professional poker player with more than $3 million in tournament cashes and multiple televised poker appearances.

In an interview with PokerNews in 2015, Gracz looked back on his early playing days.

"At that point in time, poker was all I wanted to do," Gracz said. "It was a number of dreams coming to fruition."

Gracz continued to grind out a living on the felt until early 2011. At that point, he abruptly disappeared from the world of tournament poker,.

A three-year hiatus from the game saw Gracz wash the deck and start anew, plotting a different course in life.

"I love the game. I just don't have it in me to play day in and day out," he said. "But, it became a job, and it's a hard way to make an easy living. I went and worked in corporate America."

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Schneider Banks $1 Million

Mike Schneider became the youngest-ever winner of the Party Poker Million, being just 21 years old when he defeated Kenna James for the oversized cheque for $1 million.

It was also the same year that the cruise had been removed from the WPT Season offering and went back to its original home of CardPlayer Cruises.

The event still proved popular, but the entry tally fell to 528, but still made for a prize pool in excess of $5 million.

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The Final Party Poker Million

In the Cruise's final year, the game changed to No-Limit Hold 'em, but that didn't help with the drop in interest; just 171 players registered for the tournament.

The last champion was Alexander Jung, a university mathematics student at the time.

The tournament took place aboard the MSC Poesia, which made her way from Italy to Greece, Turkey, Croatia and back to Venice.

Find Out More About WPT Voyage

Alongside the jam-packed tournament schedule, WPT Voyage, like the WPT World Championship, gets under motion with a premier Meet-Up Game, with WPT Ambassadors in attendance. There's also some extra incentive for the cruisegoers to get involved.

The opening night’s MUG will double as a pajama party, and players are encouraged to wear their best sleep attire to play. They’ve even added some extra value, with all pajama-clad MUG players being entered into a drawing for a seat in the following morning’s $5,000 WPT Voyage Main Event.

There will be more than 80 poker tables on board, and not only will there be cash games of all stakes and varieties, but there is a full tournament slate planned. The WPT has confirmed that the following tournaments, alongside the Main Event, will take place:

• $1,100 WPT Prime ($500,000 GTD)
• $10,000 High Roller
• $25,000 Super High Roller
• $1,100 Pot-Limit Omaha
• Other planned tournaments with buy-ins ranging from $150-$660 include satellites, PLO, Ladies Event, Tag Team Event, Heros Tournament, Omaha 8, Nightly $150, and more.

Calum has been a part of the PokerNews team since September 2021 after working in the UK energy sector. He played his first hand of poker in 2017 and immediately fell in love with the game. Calum has written for various poker outlets but found his home at PokerNews, where he has contributed to various articles and live updates, providing insights and reporting on major poker events, including the World Series of Poker (WSOP).

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