The Super High Roller Bowl live lottery goes ahead a week late without any warning to the players or media, and 34-players come out of the bag, not the 24-as planned.
At the back end of October, Poker Central surprised everyone by pulling the Super High Roller Bowl V (SHRB) back from May 2019 to December 2018.
The plans were predominantly the same as last year, and that meant the live lottery.
Plans were made to show the lottery live on PokerGo on Nov 27.
$30,000 Deposits had to be in before that date.
It’s Tuesday 4 December.
What happened?
I was preparing for an interview with Steffen Sontheimer when I saw this tweet.
Hey @ARIAPoker @TDPaulCampbell , I’ve heard rumours about the SHRB-lottery being postponed by one week.
Can you tell me when it will take place plz( the earlier, the better).
Thxx— Steffen Sontheimer (@RunGo0seRun) November 26, 2018
Sontheimer is the 2017 Poker Master, and recently won the $250,000 Super-Duper High Roller at partypoker’s Caribbean Poker Party (CPP)
Rumour?
How can this be possible?
I reached out to two more members of the high roller fraternity, and they held the same line as Sontheimer.
Nothing.
The organisers of a $300,000 buy-in tournament had rescheduled the live lottery to December 4 and had decided to leave the players and the media out of the loop.
I attempted to ascertain why but had the door slammed in my face.
The lottery did go ahead, albeit a week late, and with 34 drafts, not 25 as promoted.
Here they are.
1. Justin Bonomo
2. Daniel Negreanu
3. Fedor Holz
4. David Peters
5. Dan Smith
6. Bryn Kenney
7. Phil Hellmuth
8. Jason Koon
9. Jake Schindler
10. Brian Rast
11. Mikita Badziakouski
12. Isaac Haxton
13. Christoph Vogelsang
14. Stephen Chidwick
15. Cary Katz
16. Rainer Kempe
17. Dominik Nitsche
18. Adrian Mateos
19. Nick Petrangelo
20. Igor Kurganov
21. Steffen Sontheimer
22. Sean Winter
23. Koray Aldemir
24. Ben Tollerene
25. Sam Soverel
26. Alex Foxen
27. Dan Cates
28. Ben Yu
29. Talal Shakerchi
30. Bill Klein
31. Matthias Eibinger
32. Ali Imsirovic
33. Seth Davies
34. Chris Kruk
It’s nice to see Alex Foxen, Ben Yu and Chris Kruk in the mix. It’s also good form to see the 2018 Poker Master, Ali Imsirovic, and the 2018 US Poker Open Champion, Stephen Chidwick involved. And all the former winners are also included, making it a successful lottery.
The most notable absentees for me are Erik Seidel, Joe McKeehen, Antonio Esfandiari, Phil Ivey, John Juanda, Andrew Robl, Tom Marchese, Sergio Aido, Byron Kaverman and the usual German suspects.
Steve O’Dwyer would also be a shoo-in, but given he would rather walk through a car wash than play live poker in America, it’s a safe bet that one of the most in-form players in the world won’t make it.
The SHRB V comes to you live from the PokerGO studios December 17, 18 and 19.
That leaves the ARIA with 14-players to pick, and the pros will be hoping that they are nothing like them.
