This week we saw the addition to yet another poker tour when Full Tilt Poker announced the Onyx series. This will be a series of 6 tournaments with buy ins of $100K to $300K….certainly not for the average player but instead caters to the professional players at the nose bleed levels and the rich guys that can afford to give it a go.
Last year and earlier this year in Australia, we saw high roller events that did show there is definite interest. On about a week’s notice at the Aussie Millions, an event with a $250K buy in popped up and got 27 participants to pony up.
We also have the new Federated project still unfolding headed by Annie Duke and Jeffery Pollack that will sponsor events pitting the top rated 200 professionals in a series of non raked events that ends with a one million dollar freeroll.
While these are not tournaments for the little people…or even the middle sized people….the number of tournament series popping up all over the place is on the rise…….series with large payouts and the question is when is enough enough?
With the number of events on the rise, it is no wonder that there is more and more overlap. It has been that way for the past couple of years with the established tournaments around the world. Now the WSOP has expanded the circuit series, the Heartland Tour keeps growing, and the WPT has added some smaller events to feed into the larger tourneys. With this new trend toward the high rollers, we are starting to see them overlap as well.
It would be hard right now to schedule a poker tournament series without being in conflict with others. Maybe it is time for all of the tournament directors to express these issues with the powers that be in these new ventures. The Tournament Directors do have an association to discuss such matters. Now would be a good time for Full Tilt and Poker Stars to kiss and make up and realize that there is power in numbers……..together they can be stronger than standing alone. Why do you think shopping malls are built and that groups of casino owners flock to the same general area????
Will be fun to see how this all shakes out…..here at Pokerhag, we would like to see a unified approach to this issue. To see this happen would benefit all of the poker community…..the players whether it is the recreational player, semi-serious player, and the pros and it would be hard to think it would not help improve TV coverage and be a step forward in growing the market.