Poker Central announced last week that the second annual Super High Roller Bowl (SHRB) will be broadcast live on the CBS Sports Network. The 24/7 poker network said in January that it would air the SHRB on Poker Central itself; it is unknown if it will now be broadcast on both networks or if it has officially switched to CBS Sports.
The Super High Roller Bowl is a $300,000 buy-in, no rake tournament at the ARIA Resort & Casino in Las Vegas featuring many of the world’s top players. The field was capped at 49 entrants, a number that was hit back in February and has caused ARIA’s Director of Poker Operations Sean McCormack to exclaim, “I’ve never seen a high stakes tournament sell out three months in advance. It’s unprecedented!”
With an unnamed sponsor putting up another $300,000, the prize pool will be $15 million. The tournament will begin with seven seven-handed tables; the final table will also be seven-handed. Every member of the final table will win at least the minimum payout of $500,000, while the eventual winner will cash for $5 million.
The broadcast schedule on the CBS Sports Network will be as follows:
Sunday, May 29 – 7:00 p.m. – 3:00 a.m. ET
Monday, May 30 – 8:00 p.m. – 3:00 a.m. ET
Tuesday, May 31 – 8:00 p.m. – 3:00 a.m. ET
Wednesday, June 1 – 7:00 p.m. – 3:00 a.m. ET
As mentioned, the tournament will be aired live, though in accordance with Nevada gaming regulations, there will have to be a 30-minute delay to help preserve the integrity of the game. Thus, it is really “semi-live.”
Last year was the first time this ambitious tournament was held, a way for the young Poker Central to try to make an early splash. The buy-in was $500,000 in 2015; 43 players signed up, creating a $21.5 million prize pool. Like this year, the final seven players won money and Brian Rast earned $7.525 million for the win. Here is what the final table standings looked like for the first Super High Roller Bowl:
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
All of the final table members from last year are confirmed for the tournament this year.
Poker Central is also running a promotion to try to drum up more interest from the public for the Super High Roller Bowl. In conjunction with MVMT, Poker Central is hosting the Million Dollar Final Table Challenge, which will award $1 million to anyone who predicts the seven members of the 2016 SHRB final table plus their exact order of finish.
Clearly, this is a longshot, as it is not only insanely difficult to correctly pick the players who will be at the final table, but it is likely nearly impossible to do that AND get their order of finish correct. Contest participants will be permitted to enter up until the end of Day 1 of the tournament, so they will at least have a little more information at their disposal (and poker is a game of information), but the chances are still slim to none that anyone will win the million bucks. But hey, I’ll probably give it a shot.
Is it really a longshot? I think it’s pretty easy actually. I did iit last year. I did it in the WSOP as well