The Triton Super High Roller Series returns to the 2017 poker calendar, and a quarter of a million people tune into Doug Polk’s YouTube channel to watch him critique the play of Dan Bilzerian.
Last week, Poker Central President, Joe Kakaty, unveiled plans to host the third $300,000 buy-in Super High Roller Bowl calling it the ‘World Championships of High Stakes Poker.’
I think the Triton Super High Roller Series will have something to say about that.
This tumultuous Trident was born in 2016 when they partnered with the World Poker Tour (WPT) to host the $200,000 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em Triton Super High Roller Series event. 52 entrants created a $10m prize pool, and Fedor Holz took the $3.4m first prize. It was the foundation of what would become the craziest run in the history of the game.
Two more Triton events followed in 2016.
November saw tournament organisers hold HK$500,000 and HK$200,000 buy-in events in Manila. The smaller of the two attracted 39 entrants, when Daniel Cates defeated Cyril Andres, heads-up, to win the $359,000 first prize. The bigger Daddy drew 62 participants, and Yong Wai Kin beat Bryn Kenney, heads-up, to win the $2m first prize.
The Triton Super Series Returns
The organisers have announced another triumvirate of events for 2017.
This time the action will be spread far and wide with events planned for Manila, Macau and Montenegro. The first event is just around the corner Feb 17-21, with the Solaire Resort and Casino, Manila handling the action. The buy-in is HK$1m (Approx $130k) with unlimited re-entries. There will also be an HK$250,000 Six-Max event with a single re-entry.
There are scant details available for the other two events. All we know is the Macau event takes place in spring, before the series ends in Europe with an event planned in Montenegro some time in the summer.
Doug Polk Runs an Eye Over Dan Bilzerian’s Game
Doug Polk’s infamy continues to escalate after 250,000 people tuned in to watch him analyse the poker ability of a man who Triton Super High Rollers are like playing the penny slots.
Dan Bilzerian took time out from his hedonistic lifestyle to join Bill Perkins on his new Twitch stream. Sometime during the action, Perkins moved aside and allowed Bilzerian to compete on his account in some $10/$20 heads-up action on Americas Cardroom, and Polk was on hand to critique the bearded wonder’s play.
Polk wasn’t impressed, but the media were, with a plethora of outlets running with headlines containing the words ‘fraud’ and ‘poker’ with all of them asking where Bilzerian gets his money?
The incident reminded me of a Dominik Nitsche quote.
“You don’t have to be Phil Ivey to be a winning poker player,” Nitsche told me. “You just need to be the Phil Ivey of the game you are playing in.”
As Polk alluded to in his analysis, it is ‘unlikely’ that Bilzerian ‘made all of his money from poker,’ but ‘he does play a lot of high-stakes.’
Maybe Bilzerian is the Phil Ivey of his game?
Bill Perkins will now be searching for a different account to play on as Americas Cardroom will now ban him for his blatant disregard of their TOCs. If they do, I expect Perkins to buy the online poker room and reinstate himself.
