The Super High Roller Bowl V kicked off on Monday, and in addition to a calendar move from May to December, the fifth running of this made-for-streaming event included a new triple-stack add-on format, designed to encourage action and possibly add a new strategic element to the $300,000 buy-in tournament.
Player reaction to the new format inside the PokerGo studio on the Las Vegas Strip was mixed.
“I didn’t know about it when I signed up,” said Brian Rast, who won the inaugural SHRB in 2015 for more than $7.5 million. “But it probably wouldn’t have changed my decision.”
Structural Engineering
In this new format, which Daniel Negreanu credits as being the brainchild of PokerCentral founder Cary Katz (who was one of 36 players to enter and one of nine to bust out on Day One), players start with 100,000 chips and two add-on cards. The add-ons are each worth 100,000 more chips, for 300,000 total, at no additional cost.
The add-ons could be used at any time during Day One — leaving it to the players to decide if they wanted to add-on immediately or save those additional chips for later in the tournament, whether they got felted early by a bad beat or just decided their initial stack was running low.
The big blind-only ante tournament began with blinds at 500/1,000/1,000, good for 100 big blinds at a 100,000-chip stack, fewer than the 300 big blind starting stack of past SHRB’s.
The tournament also is played with a time-clock, giving players 30 seconds to act on their hand, or use one of five 60-second time banks given to them each day.
Salomon Goes Big
Most of the wealthy participants in the SHRB opted to save their add-ons for later. One player who didn’t, Rick Salomon, took advantage of his early big stack.
“I don’t like playing with a short stack,” Salomon told CardsChat. “As soon as I sat down, I added on both extra bullets. If everyone starts off short, I feel like I’m the chip leader early on. No one else at my table added on.”
Salomon, an amateur who was twice married to “Baywatch” actress Pamela Anderson, is an aggressive poker player. And by starting with three times the stack size of his opponents, that aggression caused a problem early against more accomplished pros such as Daniel Negreanu and Rainer Kempe. He was over 500,000 at the first break.
Hellmuth Arrives on Time
Phil Hellmuth concurred.
“I like this structure,” the perpetually late Hall of Famer said to his table mates. “I busted right away last time and wouldn’t have with this structure.”
At the Super High Roller Bowl IV in May, Hellmuth arrived four hours after cards went in the air. While showing up late has become part of the Poker Brat’s shtick, he had been blinded off for 40,000 chips when he did arrive and busted out a few hours later.
At this SHRB PokerGo-round, Hellmuth arrived at Poker Central’s studio on Las Vegas uncharacteristically on time.
Bang Bang for Bonomo
With players having a pair of extra bullets in the chamber, they could take some risks early in Monday’s session. And, as a result, it sparked some immediate fireworks, especially at Salomon’s table.
No one benefited more from the new action-packed format than defending champion Justin Bonomo.
Poker’s all-time winningest tournament player scooped Talal Shakerchi’s first bullet with top set against a busted flush draw 10 minutes after “shuffle up and deal” was announced. And then for good measure, “ZeeJustin” took Shakerchi’s first add-on moments later after winning a race.
Negative Negreanu
Minutes later at the same table, Daniel Negreanu four-bet shoved all-in against Steffen Sontheimer who mucked his cards. CardsChat asked Kid Poker what he moved in with.
“I had a really good hand,” DNegs said with a grin.
Negreanu, May’s SHRB runner-up, and 2015 champion Brian Rast aren’t exactly enthusiastic about the new structure.
“It’s a less skillful form of poker,” Negreanu opined. “It makes it less prestigious. It’s actually a really bad idea overall. Regular Super High Roller Bowls you play deep. Now, you have ace-king versus queens, okay, now get it all in.”
Game Changer?
“How is this good for poker?” Rast asked rhetorically. “I don’t like this.”
But do the pros lose a bit of their edge against amateurs with this new format?
“I don’t know,” Rast said, acknowledging that it might be too early to assess the impact of the structure change. “It’s hard to say, at least at this point.”
