Poker Central Announces Poker Masters High Roller Tournament Series
One down, one up. Poker Central, the parent company of dedicated online poker-content provider PokerGO, has announced a new high-roller poker series to debut this September. Called the Poker Masters High Roller Tournament Series, or Poker Masters for short, a week-long high-stakes poker series to be held at the Aria in Las Vegas in September.
Since the Aria has been running a whole bunch of high-stakes tourneys on an ad hoc basis anyway over the past couple of years, it sort of makes a bit of sense to gather up a bunch of these and make a mini-series out of them. Poker Central will stream the inaugural Poker Masters on PokerGO, and if it draws a decent audience, expect to see more.
As for what’s on tap, September’s debut Poker Masters series will offer four $50,000 buy-in tournaments and one $100,000 buy-in tournament. According to a Poker Central statement, each $50,000 tournament will run for two days, and the $100,000 “main” will span three three days.
The PokerGO streaming schedule calls for fatured and final tables to be streamed live from September 13 to September 20. There’s going to be a single “dark day,” meaning no stream, on Sunday, Sept. 17, likely to avoid trying to compete with a full day of NFL action. As with the Super High Roller Bow, the recently relaunched Poker After Dark (which is also being filmed at Aria and which will debut in August), the Poker Masters will be produced for streaming by Poker PROductions.
“Poker Masters is a testament to PokerGO’s commitment to deliver the highest quality live poker programming,” said Joe Kakaty, Poker Central’s president. “We look forward to continually expanding our live-event offering throughout the year to provide our subscribers the opportunity to watch the best content the game has to offer.”
A bit more information on the Poker Masters’ format: Each $50,000 buy-in tournament allows a single re-entry, and the $100,000 tournament will be played as a “freezeout” event with no re-entries. All tourneys are uncapped, allowing unlimited initial entries, unlike the SHRB.
The Poker Masters also offers a rake rebate to induce high rollers to participate. According to Poker Central, there’s no rake in the $50,000 tournaments for players who sign up “on time,” and anyone who plays each of the four $50,000 tourneys also gets a rake-free entry into the $100,000 finale, thus saving a few more thousand.
There’s also going to be a shot clock, which is increasingly the wave of the future. That shot clock is set for 30 seconds per hand, with three additional 60-second time banks per day.
Source: PokerCentral.com
And, oh yeah, the purple jacket. According to Poker Central, The player with the highest total earnings across the five events will be crowned the Poker Masters Champion and take home the Poker Masters Purple Jacket™. The custom jacket is designed and tailored by world-renowned fashion designer Waraire Boswell, who dresses A-list celebrities and athletes including Will Smith, Kobe Bryant, Pharrell Williams, Ellen DeGeneres and LeBron James, among others.
That “Poker Masters Purple Jacket” has been trademarked is all a part of the fun, or chutzpah… however one chooses to look at it. The thing is, if it’s a riff on the Masters’ green jacket, will the Poker Masters Champion be alloed to take it home? That’s part of the whole green-jacket tradition: Those jackets stay at Augusta. One suspects Aria could find a hallway showcase nearby to the poker room to display winners’ jackets, should the whole thing snowball and become a great success.
Here’s the inaugural Poker Masters schedule:
- September 13 Event No. 1: $50,000 buy-in (two days)
- September 14 Event No. 2: $50,000 buy-in (two days)
- September 15 Event No. 3: $50,000 buy-in (two days)
- September 16 Event No. 4: $50,000 buy-in (two days)
- September 18 Event No. 5: $100,000 buy-in (three days)
And, recapping, here are the Poker Masters quick facts:
- September 13-20 at ARIA in Las Vegas
- Tournament series features four $50,000 and one $100,000 buy-in tournaments
- No cap on the number of players in each event
- Re-entries will be allowed in the $50,000 tournaments
- The $100,000 tournament will be a freezeout event
- No satellite tournaments
- No rake for players who sign up on time, but late entries and re-entries will pay a rake
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