why do these 500,000$ + tournaments even exist?

90% of the field is only playing for their ego.

the "real players" are the behind the scene investors.

Won't anyone think of the dirty water?

And they all got a piece of other players at the table.

Much of it is fake, like the high stakes action was at Full Tilt.

That's great that you have full knowledge on what pieces everyone in those have of themselves, really great

That sponsored pros had a money rain over them payment-wise doesn't mean the high stakes action was not real. Every single dollar there was paid out to the person who won it and lost by the person who lost it. I'm pretty sure Laliberte or Hansen doesn't share your world view. And the Dangs's houses weren't built with cardboard cutouts. Neither was Galfonds ****ing slide.

like poker Avatars.


youse on to something

I’m more curious about these “necessary” poker tournaments.

They're the tournaments poker deserves, but not the ones it needs right now.

Hendon mob boosters. That’s it. They all swap shares

It's a self created poker league they've made for themselves to feel superior to other players.

Plus soft play your partners.

So rigged !

Hell no !!!

The person who is winning the most (JB) doesnt even buy in with his own dime. They are a joke. Good for the money lauders I suppose.

I like watching the guy from 'One Night in Paris' play them.

Really shaped my childhood.

Could not they just ban swapping and selling pieces for high rollers? Of course, some people will try to go around it (like doing deals when prohibited), but there could be reputation/bad stigma if caught, and fear of not getting sponsorships for breaking the rules, once poker returns to the US.

Of course, there would not be enough people to play these super high rollers, but perhaps enough to play $100k. Also, if less pros played with they own money, more rich whales would be interested in playing.

lol'ed a lot at this. Thanks and cheers yo

For the one drop, they should let the whales vote on which pros get to participate. So there will be a certain number of pros, but the pros have been agreed on by the recs as desirable.

The legends like Ivey would likely get in, while other highly skilled players would get voted out.

Also, pros should pay slightly more rake. Pay to play baby.

That's what happens in the Triton SHR Series afaik, definitely in the cashgames surrounding it. Starting next week.

I think highrollers are great for player acquisition, who cares whether a bunch of rich people wanna battle it out with whatever piece they have of themselves. Seems like misguided energy to complain about that.

I think there's a disconnect here. The SHR events should attract the fields we--the poker consuming public --want to see.

They aren't though. Whales seem to have more or less stayed away and the more popular pros have done the same. As a result, we have generally uninteresting players and whales who aren't interesting because we've seen them 1000x before.

I think the pro portion probably had a lot to do with expected ROI. Without the generally soft field we had in the 2012 version, the One Drop probably isn't attractive to a lot of guys; I know if I had the roll to play a million dollar tournament I'd be hard pressed to not play a higher stake cash game instead. Baller or not, putting up a million dollars to play for two days and make no money isn't attractive, swaps or no swaps.

A lot of the rich business guys probably view the tournaments as -ev for two reasons.

1. Too tough a field. Triton seems to have solved this to a degree; other series might want to take note.

2. Bad optics. Public image is important to these guys. Gambooling it up in a million dollar SNG will look very bad to a large segment of the population.


Perhaps the solution is to have 48 pros lined up who business men can buy like an investment.

The idea of letting whales pick the pros works well too. Remember, in many ways these are made for tv events. Treating them like normal open events is counterintuitive to a degree.

Ultimately, I think the general idea here is understandable, but short sighted. SHR tournaments do need a makeover though.

I agree with the fact that Super Highroller tourneys are stupid. As said above, they are for the players to feel superior to others. Also, poker is about playing with your money or mostly your money. These guys are in for less than 10% of themselves. IMO that ruins the idea of winning these huge prizes because they are only winning a small chunk of that prize. Plus, it is the same 30 regs who wait around for recs to join in and play. I've seen enough of these guys. They are boring and don't bring anything exciting to the table. I believe they will slowly die out because the recs will realize that they are being cheated by these regs who have pieces of each other, and they will never come back to the game out of anger and frustration. Overall, they are boring, but they are also very toxic and will remove big fishes from the pool.
Sidenote: The all time money is no longer relevant when comparing players becuase the number are over saturated with these "Big Cashes"

The Big One needs more whales to be of any interest. If you don't have a number of Asian businessmen playing there's no need to hold the event. The only thing that can save this one is Einhorn and Salomon going 1-2.

I hope this is the last 1MM BI event. Run 250k SHRs and get 70+ entries.

they aren't stupid for the people that play them. where else would they find a high stakes SNG that caters to their every need and has a few rich businessmen?

Considering that for the Big One For One Drop the charitable donation serves as an 11% rake, it's hardly the case that the pros are making money simply by taking pieces of one another. That's especially true when two players who aren't tour pros make the final six, as happened last night.

Guess I'm in the minority, but I enjoy watching SHRs.

These are necessary because pretty much all the nosebleed fish ring-fence their cash games. If they played in public cash games, then these tournaments would be stupid.

An interesting discussion for sure, just read Bonomo saying he was proud - or something to that effect - that he could pass Negreanu on the all time money list. Also people talked about soft playing from that couple in a tourney recently, I'm wondering about these tournaments in general. I saw some suspect plays from germans in the past. Even if it's not consciuous there's always some conditioning.

That's why I respect greatly online players like Cumicon, BERRI SWEET, OtB, LLinusLLove, people that really worked from themselves and battled always the best players in the world. Even if they may have selled pieces in some games, they're not selling/swaping to players that are sitting at the same table I assume.

Edited to add: also the asian players stoped coming to these tourneys, because there was that sports betting scandal a few years ago, if I remember correctly it was in Vegas.

All of these events have broken the GPI and the all time money list.

It was ok when you'd get the Main Event winners high in the ranks as that was just one event per year. Nobody took Jamie Gold's position in the list seriously when he was top 5