Super High Roller Bowl Teases $5 Million First Prize For 2016 Edition Of High Stakes Poker Tournament

January 18, 2016
Super High Roller Bowl Teases $5 Million First Prize For 2016 Edition Of High Stakes Poker Tournament

After an impressive debut in 2015, Poker Central, POKER PROductions, and the Aria Resort and Casino have announced they will once again be teaming up to host the second annual Super High Roller Bowl, an ultra-high-stakes poker tournament, guaranteed to attract the best players and the biggest whales from across the poker world.

Looking ahead to the 2016 SHRB

The 2016 SHRB will take place at Aria in Las Vegas between May 29 and June 1, and will be capped at 49 entrants this time around, including 14 spots reserved for Aria high rollers. Organizers are expecting the prize-pool to reach $15 million and first-place to be $5 million if the tournament reaches the 49 player cap.

The 2016 version of the SHRB has a few other tweaks as well, most notably the buy-in will be reduced by almost half, to $300k, but with the added bonus of an additional $300k added to the prize-pool by sponsors. This added money makes the event, in the words of organizers, “rake negative,” so unlike many super-high-roller tournaments that are seen as -EV for most entrants, the added money, along with the 14 reserved spots for non-professionals, should make the 2016 SHRB very appealing to elite players, and a +EV tournament for many more potential participants.

The addition of outside money is also a dream the poker world has tried to make a reality for a very long time, and will hopefully be the start of similar sponsor-added prize-money in other tournaments.

A look back at the 2015 SHRB

Hitting the 49-player cap shouldn’t be hard, considering last year’s inaugural SHRB saw 43 well-heeled players willing to put up the $500k buy-in for the chance to win up to $7.5 million should they be crowned the winner of the 2015 Super High Roller Bowl.

In 2015 the participant list for the SHRB was a veritable who’s who in the poker world, with Daniel Negreanu, Erik Seidel, Phil Galfond, Scott Seiver, Brian Rast, Phil Ivey, Bobby Baldwin, Sam Trickett, Antonio Esfandiari, Jason Mercier, and Dan Smith among the entrants. The tournament also pulled in a few of the online poker world’s best and brightest, as Ike Haxton and Doug Polk were among the online wizards who took part in the tournament.

The winner of the 2015 SHRB was Brian Rast, who was one of seven players to cash, and one of six players to pocket more than $1 million in prize-money:

  1. Brian Rast – $7,525,000
  2. Scott Seiver – $5,160,000
  3. Connor Drinan – $3,225,000
  4. Timofey Kuznetsov – $2,150,000
  5. David Peters – $1,505,000
  6. Tom Marchese – $1,075,000
  7. Erik Seidel – $860,000

In addition to the $500k buy-in tournament, Aria hosted a high-stakes televised cash-game in the days leading up to the SHRB tournament. Both the cash-game and the tournament were used to help market and launch the 24/7 poker network Poker Central. The network is once again a key sponsor of the event in 2016.

SHRB provides flagship programming for Poker Central

Poker Central is the first 100% poker-dedicated TV network, and during its short existence they’ve locked up a number of big events, as in addition to the SHRB, Poker Central will broadcast the Global Poker League, a new team-based poker competition that is the cornerstone of Alex Dreyfus’ attempts to sportify poker.

In addition to traditional poker tournament coverage, Poker Central has also created original programming, from biographic shows to interviews, but the SHRB looks like it will continue to be one of the network’s flagship programs.

“There are few poker events that can change the landscape of the game overnight — the Super High Roller Bowl is one of them,” said Clint Stinchcomb, CEO of Poker Central. “The 2016 Super High Roller Bowl will be even more exciting than last year’s!”

“Like last year, this prestigious tournament is bound to be one of the most talked-about events of 2016,” said Mori Eskandani, president of POKER PROductions. “We are excited to return to produce this live event.”

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