The World Poker Tour has introduced a traveling trophy for its WPT Prime Series main events that serves as both an honor to each series' main-event winner and a traveling reference link to the growing roster of WPT Prime champions. Called the Prime Perpetual Trophy and modeled to be a complimentary sculpture to the WPT Tour's lauded Mike Sexton Champions Cup, the new Perpetual Prime Trophy was unveiled this week at the series' ongoing stop in Vietnam, where the main event runs through the weekend.
There's a new twist connected to the stylish trophy. Embedded at its heart is a QR code that admirers of the trophy can scan whenever the trophy is on public display, which will take the admirers' smart devices to the WPT Prime Champions page where all of the series' main-event champions are listed. Each winner's name and winning hand will also be 'etched' into the traveling trophy via the QR code, reminiscent of the Mike Sexton Cup and other famed trophies.
All Prime main-event winners will also receive a replica of the trophy as part of their personal honors. This week's winner at WPT Prime Vietnam will be the tenth player to join the WPT Prime Champions list.
The Prime Perpetual Trophy backstory
A WPT spokersperson shared with PokerOrg some of the background behind the Perpetual Prime Trophy's creation. "Since the Mike Sexton Champions Cup is so well-recognized in the poker community, WPT has always wanted to create something similar for our mid-major tour," the WPT explained. "When it was decided to revamp the entire Tour in 2021, retiring WPTDeekStacks and introducing WPT Prime, it provided the perfect opportunity to execute this goal. So, the mission was set out to create a WPT Prime perpetual trophy, one that will travel to every Prime Tour stop, and a replica of the trophy that will be awarded to each Prime main event winner to take home."
It wasn't a slap-dash project. As the WPT rep detailed, "Between designing, budgeting, et cetera, it takes a long time for this concept to reach fruition. After working with multiple designers and production companies over months of back and forth, a final design was finally chosen to move forward with. The 'Ballerina' design was ultimately chosen because of the beautiful flow of its wings and its resemblance to the Main Tour cup.
"Just like the Mike Sexton Champions Cup, the Prime perpetual trophy needed to carry the names of every Prime main event champion with it. However, it was sought to have the Prime trophy carry these names in a more efficient way, which birthed the QR code idea. The trophy will display a QR code at its center, which will link to a Prime Champions page on WPT .com.
The WPT also explained that the trophy was selected to be unveiled during WPT Prime Vietnam's Day 1A, because one year ago, the Hanoi, Vietnam venue was chosen to be the debut Prime stop. India's Zarvan Tumboli topped a 777-entry field to become the Prime tour's first main-event winner, earning a $131,394 payday.
Featured image source: WPT
