Welcome to the extravagant kickoff of the 2014 poker year!
Once again, PokerNews is back at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, and our live reporting squad will be on hand to provide up-to-the-minute coverage of poker's largest festival outside of the World Series of Poker.
Every January, players from around the globe travel to Paradise Island in the Bahamas with hopes of winning millions of dollars, but for those here to start things off in the first event — the $100,000 Super High Roller — they are likely already millionaires (or billionaires) a few times over. With a hefty six-figure buy-in and a star-studded field, this event has players whiping the sweat from their palms and fans salivating with every all-in shove.
Last year, the $100,000 Super High Roller attracted an astounding 59 entries, and generated a prize pool of $5,724,180. The field was made up from 47 unique players and 12 reentries, with the top eight spots making the money. Finishing on top was Scott Seiver, and he landed a first-place prize of $2,003,480.
This year, much of the same is expected with a massive prize pool up for grabs and big names galore. We've already been told that over 40 players have been confirmed, including Jason Mercier, Daniel Negreanu, Antonio Esfandiari, Dan Smith, Jonathan Duhamel, Sorel Mizzi, Vanessa Selbst, Steve O'Dwyer, Chris Klodnicki, Mike Watson, Matt Glantz, Igor Kurganov, Timothy Adams, and Jason Koon.
Also slated to play is reigning WSOP Main Event champion Ryan Riess, who will aim to keep his hot streak rolling and silence the detractors who took insult to Riess' claim that he's the "best player in the world." One of those critics was Seiver, the reigning champion of this event.
Another high-profile person taking part will be Guy Laliberté. The Cirque Du Soleil founder, philanthropist and recreational poker player is considered by many to be "dead money" in these types of tournaments, but he held his own in the largest buy-in event ever in 2012. Laliberté finished fifth out of 40 players in the $1,000,000 buy-in Big One for One Drop at the WSOP, donating all of his $1,834,666 in winnings to the One Drop Foundation.
The action is scheduled to kick off at 12 p.m. local time, and each player will start with a bank of 250,000 in chips. The first level of the day will be 500/1,000/100, and levels will last 60 minutes each.
With the cards set to be in the air in less than two hours, the anticipation is growing by the minute. Stay tuned right here to PokerNews.com for all your live reporting needs. This is surely one you don't want to miss!
, Esfandiari led out for 3,400, and Greenberg called. Both players checked on the turn (
), and the river (
), and neither player tabled their cards.
, and indeed, the king was good.
