Welcome to Day 2 of the 2025 WPT Prime Thailand Exhibition Championship Event
History has been made in the Kingdom of Thailand with an enormous field of 2,337 entries for the first-ever official government-approved live poker tournament in the heart of Bangkok. Throughout four starting days, the THB 37,000 Championship Event of the inaugural 2025 WPT Prime Thailand Exhibition more than doubled the initial guarantee and generated 75,488,000 Thai Baht (~$2,325,052) in travel funds, which will be collected by the 292 players qualified for the penultimate tournament day.
Held in cooperation between PokerTalk Thailand and WPTGlobal, the event was held on the sixth floor of the Emsphere Mall at UOB LIVE with seventy tables total in play, filled to the brim with action in the past four days. This special event will crown a WPT Prime champion who takes home 11,477,000 Thai Baht value in travel funds along with the entry to the 2025 WPT World Championship in Las Vegas this upcoming December worth $10,400.
Leading the way are five players with a seven-figure stack at their disposal and four of them hail from China. Zhiqiang Meng leads with 1,350,000 followed by Junjie Wang (1,250,000), Haiyang Zhang (1,205,000), and Dongchen He (1,029,000). Also right above the million is Taiwan's Wei Jen Wang, however, there are also some international players among the chip leaders as well such as Benjamin Mages (940,000) and Ciaran Farrell (888,000).
Top 10 Chip Counts for Day 2
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Zhiqiang Meng | China | 1,350,000 | 68 |
| 2 | Junjie Wang | China | 1,250,000 | 63 |
| 3 | Haiyang Zhang | China | 1,205,000 | 60 |
| 4 | Dongchen He | China | 1,029,000 | 51 |
| 5 | Wei Jen Wang | Taiwan | 1,017,000 | 51 |
| 6 | Shaoji Wang | China | 950,000 | 48 |
| 7 | Benjamin Mages | Germany | 940,000 | 47 |
| 8 | Ciaran Farrell | United Kingdom | 888,000 | 44 |
| 9 | Haoran Sun | China | 869,000 | 43 |
| 10 | Che-Lun Liu | Taiwan | 860,000 | 43 |
The blind levels will remain at a duration of 20 minutes each to comply with the gaming hour restrictions of the Thai law, which only permits six hours of play during weekdays from 6 p.m. local time until midnight. This should allow for up to 15 levels before bagging and tagging to likely bring the field down to the last two or three tables.
Recommencing blinds will be 10,000-20,000 with a big blind ante of 20,000 and the average stands at only sixteen big blinds. All players have locked up the Thai flag for their The Hendon Mob profile along with a min-cash worth 60,000 Thai Baht. Among them will be Canada's Dominick French, who advanced with 475,000 in chips and has earned a live score in 68 different countries with this result no matter where he finishes today.
The PokerNews live reporting team will try to capture as many of the key hands as possible, but expect incredibly fast-paced action throughout the day as the tournament races towards a conclusion on Tuesday, August 5, 2025. Poker enthusiasts from near and far can also follow the action on the social media channels of Poker Talk Thailand, which offers cards-up coverage and commentary in multiple languages on a security delay of 30 minutes.